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My apologies for being late to write this. I did plan to write it first thing Monday morning but I got distracted and stuff. Anyways…

I just wanted to wrap up my weekends activities, and I think the most succinct way to do it is to say Rome wasn’t built in a day. Or two days in this case.

It took me the entire weekend just to plan what my film would be about, and even then that was just a first draft plan of what the film would be about. I wouldn’t like to then launch into writing a screenplay straight off the back of that without having time to rewrite the structure and plot a few times.

I think this problem of not even knowing the basics of what would happen in my film was probably made worse by virtue of the type of film it was. Had it been something with a genre movie feel where you could say what the plot would be straight away then I think progress would have been quicker. Had I been working on my slasher film in a 48 hour period for example I think I would have gotten further than 48 hours working on this, where frankly I didn’t really have a clue where the story would take me, I only had a concept for the main character being a certain sort of person.

So for someone to write a feature film in a weekend I guess one the following things must be true:

• They already know more or less what their film is about, where the plot is going to take them and what the characters are like. Trying to work out this stuff just eats too much time out of your 48 hours. You can come up with this stuff in two days, or you can write the screenplay in two days, not both.
• They are willing to let their imagination take them where ever it wants to go and thus are willing to forgo planning entirely. (Being Captain Sensible I didn’t want to end up with 90 pages of tosh that would end up being changed anyways, I’d rather have 30 pages of really solid treatment instead, so I was always destined to never get around to writing a screenplay this weekend.)
• They are just a genius, or so in the zone that a whole screenplay just falls into their lap and they just write it down. Apparently this only happens to a writer once in his lifetime if he is lucky.

So what exactly have I ended up with? Well now I’ve got a first draft treatment of a feature film that didn’t exist a few days ago, which I can now polish over the coming weeks. Once I think it’s as developed as it’s going to get I will be able to quickly turn it into a screenplay. Maybe in 48 hours if I did all nighters and I was in the zone, but more likely over a couple of weeks.

So basically, what I would say to you is that if you have an idea for a feature film that you have always meant to start but never have, set yourself a time frame and see how far you can get with it. Maybe not 48 hours, maybe just a single afternoon, but just do it. Just write down everything you know about what is going to happen in your feature film and Bob’s your uncle, you now have something to rewrite and work on. Getting past that blank page is the most important thing. And if nothing else it means the next time you are at a networking party you can talk about the multiple projects you have in development.

You could even do what I did, by telling everyone that you are going to do this challenge it forces you to really hunker down and do it without putting it off. That for me was the whole reason for making this into a big public “challenge” and blogging about it. I wanted it to be an iron clad, concrete indestructible date in my diary so I would know I got it done. And by doing this you get the added bonus that loads of people offer you free script reading because they are interested to see what you got up to!

I think in the future I might have to give this challenge a proper go. I.e I’d have all the plot and everything worked out, I’d have a killer treatment that I am happy with, and now it’s just a case of handcuffing myself to my desk for 2 days and not leaving until that killer treatment is written as a 100 page screenplay. I think that is a much more realistic goal in terms of what you can do in 48 hours, and that to me sounds like a more productive work flow than doing the 2 day screenplay without having written a treatment first, where you would only end up ditching 95% of the script anyway.

As I blogged yesterday, it is my plan to write a whole feature film this weekend, or at least see how much development is possible in that time frame. Throughout the day I will be updating with progress reports so keep checking back.

Day 1

09.00

It just turned 9, I’ve showered and eaten, I’ve checked my email, I’m all set to start working. I’m a little concerned about my how my hands are going to hold up over the weekend, they are already a little sore from far too much guitar playing and a lot of typing is probably going to make them ache and be all clicky, but oh well. My first port of call is just to splurge down stuff on the few scenes I know about and see where that gets me.

Currently listening to Queens of the Stone Age – Songs for the Deaf

09.52

Well I think I’ve written just about everything I had already come up with. At present I’m on page 3 with a bunch of very crude summaries on what will happen in the scene. Gems such as

At some army base type place, a guy comes to collect a shipment of something. Everything seems top secret, it is raining outside and ominous.

I guess now I’ll have to start actually planning some basic concepts on what the structure is going to be. If I can get down my act breaks and mid point and ending in the next hour I’ll be happy as that is the bones I can start building stuff around.

Currently listening to: Rage Against The Machine – Rage Against The Machine

11.00

I’ve had a slow hour really. My problem is the premise for this movie is a certain character being thrust into a situation you would not think of that character being in, but once I get past setting up that situation I dont then have any plot worked out yet. At least with my slasher film I had a really obvious plot to follow, a character wanting to get out alive, with this film I’m having to come up with a plot out of thin air. Not to worry though, we still have 46 hours to go! I’m sure I can come up with something in that time.

Currently listening to: Rammstein – Sehnsucht

12.03

The past hour has gone a lot better. I’ve come up with ideas of where I wanna take the story and one idea has lead to another which has lead to another. It’s writing itself at the moment! I’ve already started taking the film in completely different directions from where I thought I would before I started, it’s pretty exciting to see it evolve.

Currently listening to: Ramones – Ramones

14.04

I’ve had a spot of lunch and now I’m trying to work out a 3rd act structure as that seems like the piece of the puzzle I most need at the moment. Only problem is that at the moment I am reconsidering the whole tone of the movie in terms of the pacing. I had originally planned for a grab them straight away and don’t let go sort of film, but I’m thinking now that perhaps with comedy it is better to keep things more low key and give stuff time to develop and get progressively worse over time rather than smacking them in the head with it being terrible straight away.

I’m beginning to think I am doing way too much thinking and planning to still meet the goal of getting a screenplay in two days. I wanted to have my plot worked out before I started getting into specifics, but if it is going to take my all afternoon to do that then I may have to reconsider the goals of this weekend. I think to do the feature film thing I need to have been writing already.

Currently listening to: Agalloch – The Mantle

14.31

The weather is being really weird outside. It’s gone from totally pouring down with rain to being so sunny that I was getting sun burnt just sitting by the window and I had to close the curtains to stop my skin from hurting, to now its really foggy outside and even with the lights on the room barely has enough light. Gah. I’m glad I decided to spend the day writing and not going out somewhere. I’m totally procrastinating at the moment. Back to work!

Currently listening to Alkaline Trio – Goddamnit

16.34

The weather has much improved. Can’t say my screenplay has. I’ve still got way too many unknown quantities and its very slow going to work through them.

Currently listening to: Nothing. My brain needs a rest before it explodes.

18.36

I’ve yet to start doing any screenplay type stuff like dialogue or sluglines I’m still just doing everything as action/full prose/treatment type stuff. I’ve already decided that for John Hughes to have written the features in two days he must of at least had his basic plot and characters worked out ahead of time, which is the time consuming stuff I’ve been dealing with today. Alas, I shall keep plugging away and see where I get to.

Currently listening to: My belly rumbling.

21.01

Let’s be honest, I was never going to get an entire screenplay written totally from scratch this weekend, I was only using this a glorified excuse to push myself to develop another feature idea in an excellerated fashion rather than have it take the months it’s taken me with films in the past. I could spend the rest of the night slogging away for the arbitrary goal of seeing how far I can get with it, but I’m happy with the progress I’ve made so far today so I’m going to call it a night.

This morning I had nothing but a vague concept of a film. Now 12 hours later I’ve come up with the basic plot, my main characters, come up with some specifics of the structure and how one scene will cut to another, and come up with some pretty funny set pieces. I’d say that is a good days work.

Lets see how far we get it done tomorrow…

Day 2

09.08

My first port of all is just to read through yesterday’s stuff and make notes on it. Then I’ll work through the notes for however long it takes to do so. I’m not really overly concerned with how many pages I get down anymore, I’m just wanting to get everything working well.

Currently listening to: Black Sabbath – Paranoid

11.13

Reading through it again left me upbeat. I think there is a good story in here with the potential to go somewhere. I’ve made a bunch of notes of things that I need to fix, everything from typos to scenes that need completely rethinking. Now I’m in the process of working towards those things. I’m not really pushing myself as hard as yesterday as this is more about quality than quantity now, plus I wanna enjoy myself after yesterdays pretty stressful day of splurging.

Currently listening to: The Clash – The Clash (US version)

14.23

Not much to report at the moment. I’m still just carrying on tweaking stuff, expanding stuff, fixing stuff. Really I’m onto the part of the process where you say “Writing is rewriting“. I’ll be doing this for the rest of the day I think. No point starting to write a feature at this stage so it’s more about continuously polishing what is already here until I get fed up with doing that.

Currently listening to: Immortal – At the heart of winter