Two-Bit Pictures is Looking Forward: PART 3 - The Writing

Once we had our requirements my mind started to race. I quickly found that I was coming up with ideas for every genre except Film de Femme. I didn’t want to make a film about a stereotype (female in the workforce, female killing for revenge, female fighting for her rights in a man’s world, etc.) which meant that I didn’t have any viable ideas for a strong female character. I started to think of quirky female characters that could go on adventures of self discovery in 4-7 minutes but I was getting nowhere fast. Luckily we had a group of people to brainstorm and write.

Groups can get tricky in creative situations when there is little time to brainstorm. Everyone has their own opinions and when brainstorming everyone should be heard. But what happens when there are seven tired people in a room at night with the clock ticking away towards your sun-up deadline for a finished script? You have to shoot down a lot of ideas, possibly hurt feelings, and try your darndest to come up with the best plot you can. We had a lot of ideas thrown out, some lively debate that would have gone better if we weren’t so tired and under the gun, some people stuck on how to include the requirements, and others who were worrying about set, costumes, etc. It got chaotic at times and I’m not sure what the neighbors thought but despite some awkward moments and inadvertent scathing remarks it was very helpful to have seven points of view in one room throwing out ideas. In the end we came up with an idea and we all learned a little something about brainstorming on a time budget.

Originally, all seven of us were going to write. I was worried about the number of people that would be writing and the events of the brainstorming session didn’t help so I will admit that I was relieved when plans changed. I didn’t worry about who was writing; we all have experience writing scripts of one sort or another, but too many cooks in the kitchen, no matter if they are gourmet or food truck, will make for one terrible stew. Our group shrunk from seven people to four for the basic script/plot and then to three brave souls who wrote the full script. (We really weren’t that brave. All three of us have previous experience with brainstorming, writing scripts, and performing live within a 24 hour time frame. It’s never easy but at least we knew what we were up against.) We worked through the dialogue and plot in bits and pieces and by 5:30am we had the script 99% done. I bailed to drive back to my house to sleep and gather supplies for the shoot which would start in only a few short hours. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...