We have a Choir Mistress: Maureen Fepulea’i, a playwright to look out for. The Producer and Director have names, too: Jenni Heka and Chris Molloy, respectively – I salute you both. Their bios are here. And the cast, of course. Shadon Meredith, who was one of the voice actors in O le Samaria. The young [...]
Read-throughs can be fun to attend as a reader or gopher but when you’re the writer, you can only gird your loins and approach it as an instructive exercise. One of the nice things about a closed read-through is that the atmosphere is collegial: it’s okay to say, This dialogue sucks because it’s understood that [...]
For some reason – and it’s not just my usual laziness – the idea of revision has, of late, been quite a mountain to climb. As if it wasn’t bad enough circling a blank screen, approaching a draft with revisory intent always makes me think of that saying about dogs and their vomit. A script [...]
You want names? They’re right here and here. … Um, yeah: more to follow, obviously. So, yesterday was the read-through and…. Read-through’s are always an heady, anxious, butterflies-in-the-bowels kind of experience. You’ve just emerged into the light with a draft that you think/hope/pray hits the mark. You anticipate the joy of hearing your dialogue sing [...]
INT. PRODUCER’S OFFICE – DAY TIGHT ON WRITER, lower lip trembling. WRITER You’re what? PRODUCER Oh don’t be a sookie – WRITER You’re swanning off to who-knows-where so I have to deal directly with the director – PRODUCER Shut up and have a Chupachup. The Writer crosses his arms. Looks meaningfully at a corner of [...]
Recap: - a 23-page working first draft of the script was submitted on Sunday (15 April); - on Wednesday (18 April) an actual, like, complete first draft of the script was demanded by the coming Saturday (21 April); - Thursday was day-job day, and was full-on, maaan; - Thursday was so full-on that it spilled into [...]
The hours/days/weeks/months of radio silence that follow the delivery of a script never get easy. In this case, I only had to wait three days. From: Producer To: Writer Subject: Goodbye My Feleni – first draft Message: Where’s the second act? Ah yes. The second act.
It’s not as perfect good as I’d like. But it’s got a beginning. And an ending. What more could a story want? So yeah: I hit 23 pages five minutes before deadline, held my breath and clicked on Send. The Producer can’t ditch me now.
15. A measly three pages since yesterday. But I did spend an hour negotiating a formal agreement that reasonably I’m happy with. There were moments that gave me some ‘Nam-style flashbacks but everyone’s still alive and still talking. It’s late afternoon now and we’re entertaining in the banquet hall so there’ll be no more writing [...]
INT. KEEP, FORTRESS MAMEA – NIGHT Our WRITER hunches over his desk, fingers flying over his KEYBOARD, head bopping to Charlie Parker. A particularly intense buzz of typing and he squints at his MONITOR -- ON MONITOR where a page count shows “12″. WRITER Yeah, baby! His CELLPHONE vibrates. ON CELLPHONE which shows “New txt [...]
