Notes from the Underground

Just finished my slam session with Valérie, the screenplay "doctor". We got very deep and very direct on the first act.  It's almost there. Lots of detail, lots of discussion about dialogue and character throughout. The "second act cul-de-sac" as it's typically known in screenwriting parlance is exactly that in my case. The bulk of the work needs to be done there.  The ending, well the ending is still in play much as it has been written - all events and characters just need to lead to it, that's all. 

Despite the really deep tissue massage that still must be done, what we have is a film in the making that is more and more focussed on the mother-daughter dynamic - that cinematic black hole in the coming-of-age genre. 

My next deadline for a new version is three weeks tomorrow. 

Much will be happening between now and then though - we should be hearing back sometime this month from the Shaw Rocket Fund, I will be meeting with the first of our 6 short-listed "Elizabeth's" to begin a deeper exploration of the candidates, and lastly, I should be having a second conversation with the tremendously exciting actor I spoke with on Friday. We had a very long, very in-depth chat. She had much positive stuff to say about the script, many intelligent questions about how I see the film, the character, how I work... Anyway, it was great! Just having my script compared to that of "Lars and the Real Girl" was worth the price of missing the first in a James Bond double-header. Anyway, nothing's decided, we left it that she will read the script a second time with particular attention to what kind of commitment will be required from her for the role and look at my creative documents for my visual approach and we're set to talk again after that.

Stay tuned...