Delivering a working draft of a screenplay…

From JULY 2007...

We are finally done with our BEAT SHEET for Eight Rivers, which was put together by myself, the director and another one of the producers. During the process of creating this beat sheet, we certainly found the spine of the story and a number of interesting facets that have improved where we are going with it and what we are trying to say. If you are writing a project with a group of people - as you indeed might be - having everybody in agreement on the beats of the story is key. If you were building a house, the beat sheet would serve as your blueprint, more or less. All your dialogue and character development should actually arise from the beats. It’s NOT the other way around. In fact your character development, dialogue and action should ALL be perfectly integrated into your story beats. The master of this was the late, great Paddy Chayefsky pictured above.

So - on to a functinal system for delivering a working draft of your screenplay. Again, the key is to have you and your co-conspirators on the same page. I have found, over the years, the easiest way to do this is to deliver 10 pages at a time over a period of 10 days - meaning that you can have a 100 page working draft in ten working days. Basically, you get up early - write 10 pages by ‘close of business’ and submit them to your producer/director. The group reviews your pages, you collectively make changes and repeat the process until you have your first, working draft. Sounds simple? In principle it is. And if you have a beat sheet to work from the process gets much easier. But first off, you must be in agreement on the four major beats…

i) Where does the story start?
ii) End of act one turning point.
iii) End of act two turning point.
iv) How do we end this story?

Those are your four tent poles, so to speak. Ignore them at your peril. Having them solid and smart will improve your working draft no end. Having them vague and unsteady - you’re in for a world of pain…

So there you have it. 10 pages a day for 10 days. It can be done. Alternatively, a more sedate approach is to deliver the script one act at a time - basically 30 page segments. This way, instead of the review process happening every evening - it only happens three times during your first draft schedule. However, I would still suggest trying to write each of your three acts over 3 days - or 3.5 days, even. Momentum has always been very important for me. It will add to your level of focus and remove any sense of distraction.

Remember - NOW is the time to tell your story.