Apart from my typing, with I swear is very good, a thing I like about my writing is something I also dislike \u2013 but I doubt I\u2019ll ever stop.<\/p>\n
Here it is. In the script I\u2019m writing at the moment, I have a tiny moment when a drunk woman by Birmingham\u2019s Broad Street nightclubs walks through our hero like he\u2019s a glass door. It\u2019s pretty good, I think: late night outside busy clubs so lots of dark and light plus she\u2019s very drunk so you accept she doesn\u2019t see him and you get that she doesn\u2019t care.<\/p>\n
This is my character\u2019s most vulnerable point in the story so the symbolism of him finding himself accidentally in a ferociously busy place where he\u2019s invisible and unwanted is, I believe, nicely striking.<\/p>\n
Only, the drunk woman bothered me.<\/p>\n
She does exactly what I need but the moment I say that to you, I realise she was a device rather than a character. Ultimately everyone in a script is a construct but you want them all to have life.<\/p>\n
So actually I suddenly feel a tiny better about what I did. No, I like what I did, I just feel better that it\u2019s something I keep doing.<\/p>\n
Let me explain slightly quicker.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a scene shortly afterwards where we\u2019re back in Broad Street but it\u2019s early the next morning. I think \u2013\u00a0no, I know \u2013 I am channelling the final scene in Before Sunrise<\/a> where the film touches on locations we\u2019ve seen, just now empty and in daylight instead dark and alive with that film\u2019s Celine and Jesse.<\/p>\n Richard Linklater and Kim Krizan\u2019s script<\/a>\u00a0for that scene says:<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026a series of shots of many of the locations CELINE and JESSE inhabited the night before. In the early-morning light those places are now somehow different. Even though there is little human presence at this time of the morning, the transformation has begun.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In my case, my guy Richard has come under even more pressure overnight but it\u2019s familiar pressure, it\u2019s the kind of problem that he\u2019s good at, so in an odd way he begins to climb back up.<\/p>\n New day, new world, I\u2019m not saying this is the most original part of my script. I need it, I want it, I\u2019ve made it this way but the uncontrollable itch is in this scene:<\/p>\n EXT. BIRMINGHAM \u2013 MORNING<\/p>\n Establishing. The outside of the Really Cheap B&B. Hagley Road. Broad Street\u2019s cheap hotel. Jury\u2019s Inn. The same DRUNK WOMAN asleep inside a curry house, face against the window.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That\u2019s it. She\u2019s back. Doesn\u2019t do anything, doesn\u2019t appear again and even in this moment Richard doesn\u2019t notice her \u2013\u00a0but isn\u2019t that right? Doesn\u2019t that feel right to you?<\/p>\n I like the mirroring. I especially like that I got it organically, that I didn\u2019t think What Will Mirror Last Night\u2019s Scene.<\/p>\n I also just find it really, truly satisfying when moments connect together. When things aren\u2019t just a good idea thrown in but they become part of the weave.<\/p>\n The trouble is that I cannot stop doing this. If something happens in a script of mine or if you meet a character, it is almost totally rock-solid certain that you\u2019re going to see them again or it\u2019s going to have an impact again.<\/p>\n I was asked about my bad writing habits the other day and this is one. I can definitely see that it\u2019s because I also produce things: I want to make maximum use of every character, every extra, every location. And I do see that this is also actually quite limited of me.<\/p>\n But the satisfaction when this particular script knew I needed something and tapped me on the shoulder to remind me that I had this drunk character I could come back to, that is and was gold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Apart from my typing, with I swear is very good, a thing I like about my writing is something I … Continue reading