Sunday, April 24, 2011

When Is A Script Like A Fat Lady?

When it sings, Baby! LOL

We know we’re finished at last-- because our script is “singing”. What does that mean exactly? It’s hard to explain, but it’s akin to the difference between a hothouse tomato and one that’s ripened on the vine. You can just taste it! One looks like a tomato and even tastes like a tomato, but the other one explodes in your mouth and makes all other tomatoes a dim memory.

Our script was OK before. Heck, we thought it was damn good! :) but we made a few tweaks after we got the final critique and WOW what a difference! The changes were really very minor. It was what I would call a Fast Polish.

We are now both really excited and ready to market with no reservations.

On to the next phase—Pitching.

We’ve had so much fun, we’re already wondering what to work on next! But we’ll wait on that for a bit and let our minds and bodies recover from this stress first.

Stay tuned for the responses! Fingers and all other appendages crossed, please!

Hurray!

Angela and Marla

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Name That Writer!

We give up! We'll never solve this mystery...

Excerpt from a recent phone conversation while fine-tuning the latest draft of our adaptation of GREEN DARKNESS:

Angela:  I don't know where you got that quote, but I like it there.
Marla:  Me?  You should know where it came from, you put it in.
Angela:  No I didn’t! You did!
Marla:  No I didn’t!
Angela:  Yes you did. 
Marla:  Well, I didn't write it.
Angela:  I thought you did.
                                                      Marla:  I thought you did.
                                                      Angela:  Oh my God, we don't know who wrote what anymore!
                                                      Marla:  And we're arguing about it!
   
No, we weren't unintentionally performing our own spontaneous version of Abbot & Costello's 'who's on first' routine. It seems we've created a screenwriting version of the Vulcan mind meld: Scriptwriters' Synchronicity – or maybe great minds really do think alike? And please don’t go to the corollary of that statement! LOL

Marla tells me that sometimes she'll read sections of her own screenplays and not remember writing it. Maybe psychic Sylvia Browne was right when she told Marla that Marla's late father was always helping her write. Psychic writing? Channelling from the afterlife? Hey, did her Dad know my Mom? I’ve had the same experience, time and again.

But now we’re having that subconscious experience simultaneously while we’re supposed to be collaborating. Did I mention that we changed the first scene and I suggested to Marla that we should add a certain detail-- and she’d already done it? 

So who’s going to take the final bow?
Angela: Not me!
Marla: Okay, not you.
Angela: You don’t always have to agree with me.
Marla: Right. Just eventually…
Angela: We’ll bow together. 

Bowing out until the next time!
Angela and Marla 

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Gimme A Cold One! -- Script, That Is!

Who knew the present could meet up with the 1500s? Angela and I did, or at least we hoped it was possible. We were right!
    
It happened April 2nd when nine actors, ranging in age from 10 to 60-ish, met at Angela's house.
    
Their mission? They thought it was to participate in a cold reading of a new stage play, but were pleased to learn it was a table reading of our screenplay adaptation of GREEN DARKNESS - at first glance, they liked our revised title. Good sign...
    
Angela delegated the major rolls - she chose well by having professional actor Derek McGrath read the dual role of our protagonist in present and in past.
    
Minor roles fell where they may - the 10-year-old boy read well, including one word ("whore") his father was going to explain to him on the drive home. Many of the minor parts were doubled up. Angela even marked all the scripts, highliting the appropriate role for each actor. That really helped to decrease the confusion.
    
With all the action/description being read aloud, too, the event took almost two and a half hours to complete. (That included the failure of the camera, crash of my Skype connection, leaving me looking at a blue screen of warnings! Time to get my CPU worked on. From then on, I listened in via speaker phone.) Through it all, Angela did well - she resisted both speaking and adding sound effects.
    
At times the one actress mixed up an American southern accent with an English accent - and made it work! That character may now become an American from the south in our script.
    
Angela got a little teary-eyed at the climax. That's a very good thing. Other positive comments overheard included experiencing goosebumps at various stages as well as the climax and needing to resist turning the page, before everyone else, to see what would happen next.
    
Spontaneous applause signalled the end of the reading - praise for the people and the material. And the pizza's arrival.
    
Yes, we have a few things to consider as we tweak the script just a 'little' more. The decision was unanimous that we had hit the genre bull's-eye. McGrath took his copy home to read again, promising to email further feedback.
    
Was the reading worth the hostess' jitters? Definitely.
 
Now on to the next step~~
Marla