INT. STUDY – NOW
YOU pull a FILE from your FILING CABINET and open it on your DESK.
ANGLE ON a BOUND SCREENPLAY with the words “First Draft” underneath your name.
You pick it up and feel its weight, a smile playing on your lips.
CUT TO:
FLASHBACK – INT. STUDY – A FORTNIGHT AGO
You type “FADE OUT” on the POWERBOOK SCREEN and lean back in your CHAIR. You press a couple of keys and the PRINTER whines to life.
TIMECUT as you savour each page as it comes out of the printer.
TIMECUT as you THREE-HOLE-PUNCH all the pages, smiling as you re-read the scenes that wrote themselves.
TIMECUT as you bind the pages with 3/4-INCH BRADS, feeling elated and all-round chuffed that this first draft will require only the most minor tweaks on its way to Oscar platinum.
CUT BACK TO:
INT. STUDY – NOW
You shuffle your buttocks to get comfortable in your chair. You turn to the first page.
The little smile you’re wearing falters, then flips itself over. The favourite scenes that wrote themselves a fortnight ago are now cliches riddled with logic errors. The remembered elation and all-round chuffedness is replaced by the realisation that set-ups and/or pay-offs you meant to include are tragically missing.
You look up, blinking rapidly. You can do this. You turn another page.
INT. STUDY – ONE HOUR LATER
You slump in your chair, the ninety pages in your hands heavy with disappointment and promise. You take a breath. And slowly release it.
Yes, that was dreadful. But you can see the idea driving it all. And despite the typos and cliches and holes and leaps, you recognise the enthusiasm that produced it. You sort of like it – the execution sucks in places – but you still like it.
You get out a PENCIL. And you get back to work.
