“The Interrogation” Update 2020 April 7

Progress on "The Interrogation" has stalled a bit, after some productivity. However, I did complete another round of revisions to the outline since my last update: https://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/the-interrogation-update-2020-february-9/

Feedback

I read the outline I wrote at a couple of meetings of my script writer’s group. The response was generally positive, although they did point out some issues with what I had so far. Everyone had some advice, which was helpful to me.

I compiled a list of the suggestions I had as a first step toward the revisions. While I worked on that I came up with some ideas of my own. This formed the objectives I had for the revision.

Revisions

•         I added more detail to the character descriptions in the outline. This included behaviour, attitudes, physical descriptions and clothes. One of the suggestions I had about the outline was that this kind of information was missing from the outline. I had created some of this information earlier, but kept it separate from the outline.

•         Some characters made what look like stupid decisions. I tried to come up with ways to make those decisions appear more reasonable to the characters.

•         I gave each of the minor characters a distinctive personality, although none of them are very complex.

•         I gave some of the characters new names. The original ones were kind of on the silly side, which doesn't fit well with the tone of the story.

•         The solution that my protagonists come up with feels like it was just a random guess that turned out to be right. I tried to make it the result of a methodical process.

•         I had a couple of long scenes that I decided to break up into multiple scenes. In one case that was to indicate time gaps. In the other case it was because the location was changing, although in a very minor way.

•         Many of what I considered minor scenes had very sparse descriptions. I expanded the descriptions for most of those scenes. I would like to develop them into more important scenes.

•         I had two major interrogation scenes, but one was much longer than the other. I tried to move some of the action from the longer one to the shorter one.

•         I added some minor red herrings and barriers to some scenes to give them more substance.

•         I realised I had a plot hole where the villain recognizes the main protagonist without any prior contact. I added a scene to explain why he was able to recognize her.

•         I added to a couple of scenes to make it clear that the captured terrorist does not know where or when the attack will be. He does know something that allows the protagonists to identify the time and place, even though he doesn't realize the importance.

•         In addition to the main conflict between the bad guys and the good guys, I had hinted that there was conflict within these two groups. In my revisions I tried to develop those conflicts in more detail.

•         In an earlier version I made the terrorist group a group of white supremacists. In this round of revisions, I added a brief scene to identify that good guys as the Anti-Terrorism Joint Task Force (ATJTF). I see it as a team made up of people from different organizations. I would like to come up with a name that has a better acronym.

Summary of Progress

In this round of revisions, I went from 15 scenes to 21. The rule of thumb I heard was that scenes generally run 2 to 3 minutes. That would make this script run 42 to 63 minutes. That is too long for a short, and too short for a feature.

For now, I won't let myself get too concerned about the script falling into an unsaleable range. I don't see what I could cut out, and I don't want to add in any unrelated filler. It also strikes me that some of the scenes could end up running much longer than 2 to 3 minutes. I won't have a real grasp on this until I get a draft of the script done. I would hope that by then I would have a better understanding of the characters, which could spark ideas to expand the story.

What Next?

Now that I am stuck at home and practicing social distancing, I thought I’d be more productive. I’ve found that checking the COVID 19 news every couple of hours, is not conducive to rapid progress on my story.

I ran into a bit of a snag when my laptop decided to upgrade to a newer version of Windows. I had to delete most of my programs before it would upgrade. This included Scrivener, which I used to write the outline. I've preferred to write using my laptop rather than my desktop. The desktop is in a room on the north side of my house, and I like to work in a room on the south side, where I get some very welcome sunshine in these dark days of social distancing.

I decided to take a bit of a break from the project. I am debating whether I should dive into writing a first draft of the script or, if I should do more work on the outline and character descriptions. I do feel impatient to "get going" and write the script.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

The Interrogation Update 2020 February 9

I've given my terrorist story a new name: "The Interrogation". Although I didn't feel that I was ready to write this story yet, I found myself slowly moving in that direction.

I have completed a treatment of the story and I’d like to get some feedback on it. If you are interested in reading it, get in touch with me.

Why this Story?

The story doesn't really fit the kind of project I wanted to work on now. I wanted a story I could make in Nawmal. Most of this story could be done that way, but the last segment of the story involves a lot of action, which I don't think I can do in Nawmal.

Part of the reason I got into this story was that I wanted to try out Scrivener for writing. I had a rough outline of the story in Word, so I imported that. As I experimented with the program, I found myself developing the story, so I continued to work on it.

The Treatment

I had started to sketch out ideas for characters and plot. I decided to go ahead and develop those into a treatment of the story. It came together quickly. It runs about 6 pages and has 15 scenes, although I do have a couple long scenes that I think I may want to split up into several separate scenes.

I'm not sure how long the final version would be. I felt it would be a short. Although one person who read a draft of the treatment thought it could be feature length.

One of the things I wanted to avoid was being too preachy. The story does reflect some strong opinions I have, so I felt that would creep in without my being aware. The feedback I have so far is that I haven't fallen into that trap - yet.

Changes to the Story

I didn't make many changes to the plot of the story. It was more a matter of adding details to the events rather than adding new events.

In my original concept, I left the nature of the terrorist group very vague. I decided to make them white supremacists. Maybe later I'll give them a more specific, and fictional, identity. For me, the exact nature of the terrorist group isn’t that important to the story. Although I can see that the wrong choice could turn off some members of the potential the audience.

The other major change came when I realized that all my characters were men. I felt I should add some women to the mix. I only changed one so far, and don't plan to change any others. For some characters I think this could wait until casting.

The decision to change my lead character to a woman turned out to fit in very well with the relationships I had already decided on. I have a conflict between her and her boss that makes more sense if she is a woman. Maybe at a subconscious level I was aware of that, which is why I picked her.

Further Plans

I don't think this is a film that I really want to make. Nonetheless, I feel I need to carry the project all the way to a final script before I work on other projects. I need to prime the pump so to speak. That would make it easier for me to work on other projects.

I've written a few scripts that I later decided I wouldn't pursue. With this one I feel I should try to get some wider distribution to get feedback. Who knows, maybe it will attract someone who will want to make it.

As for the story itself, one of comments I got was that the story could be done as a dark comedy. Certainly, one of my characters lends himself to a humorous interpretation. I'd prefer to stick to a more serious take on the story. That said, it seems that humorous aspects seem to crop up in my work. It isn't because I am that have any skills at comedy.

Someone pointed out that I may want to change the names of the terrorists, because they allude to some Disney characters, and that could run into some copyright/trademark issues. I haven't given any thought to what other names to use. I do want to have names that are clearly pseudonyms.

Scrivener

I haven't decided yet if I will stick with Scrivener. I haven't explored all that it can do yet. I still have a couple weeks on the trial version before I need to decide. So far, I do like it. It has some features I've seen in other programs - like a cork board view, but their version is much easier to use.

One thing I'd like to do, which I have found in other programs, is that when you change the name of a character in the character description file, it is automatically changed in the whole document. If Scrivener can do that, I haven't worked out how.

That came up when I decided to change the name of a character from "Al" to "Howard". I used a global replacement, and then realized that "al" is a common occurrence in many words.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog