The Writing Process

It's been over a month since last I posted, so I want to come say SOMEthing. Nick recently moved into a new apartment with his wife (their first), so things in his life have been too hectic to continue through the casting process. Now that he is settling down again, though, we will be right back to it. I'm going to post the cast list again, and we will start reading with the actors we've already met.

For today's post, though, I thought I would share a little bit about the process of bringing the Get Back script to the page. A few years ago, Nick and I talked about an idea for a movie he had. It was going to be a dramatic story about a guy coming back home after his father died, and dealing with those issues with his friends and the remainder of his family. It was just another random idea that sparked no continuation. Fast-forward to the fall of 2007, though, and the idea emerged again, with a slightly different alteration. Inspired by listening to The Beatles, Nick had come up with the groundwork for Get Back - a man comes home, after being away for years, to get revenge on his father's death. Nick is well known for hating to write - it's a personal struggle of his that I can't mock because I have my own creative issues myself. We all do. To help encourage him in writing Get Back, I even started to grow my beard and hair (as it was previously decided that my character should look reminiscent of a Beatle member). At this time Nick was working two jobs, and after a couple months, he was burnt out on trying to write. So, I offered to write the script for him. At first it was taken as a joke, but as soon as my sincerity was understood, he was all for the idea. Now, it was all up to me.

I am a very different writer than Nick. Heck, I'm a very different movie-maker all together. He wouldn't make the movie I would, and vice versa. So, when I started to rewrite the opening few pages he had, I at first tried to match his style. That only lasted a day or two, though, when I realized I needed to just write the movie following his story and ideas, but using my own sensibilities. As soon as I understood that, the script took off. I was amazing myself, really, by how well it was going. Talking with Nick later, we both saw how much easier it was for me not just because I'm amazing (that's up for debate), but because it wasn't my own story. I was less concerned about making my own personal masterpiece, so I was able to freely enjoy the process and concentrate on characters and ideas. I only hit a snag once, on page 41 - but after a few days of going through the possibilities and writing and re-writing the scene, I pushed through.

One of the most notable differences between Nick and myself is how verbose I am. It can be seen in anything I'm passionate about, blogs, stories, anything - I like to make sure nothing is skipped over. So, as I was writing, Nick asked how I was going. I let him know - that I was on page 16 and I was just getting to a certain scene....a scene that he had reached on page 5 of his version of the script. By the time I was done, my script was 87 pages long, but, even by Nick's own admission, there is nothing in the script to cut out - it's all necessary and valuable.

I finished my first draft in just under 3 weeks. For myself, I was rather impressed by that time. I'm generally not known for such a fast turn around creative work - but perhaps this was a sign of changing times (my more recent work on animations and other writing has shown this is not true). Nick and I spent the next couple of weeks going through it, and talking about what might be changed, but the changes were all really minor. A couple weeks later, we had a final draft.

I'm glad I was able to write the script for Get Back, both for my own creative confidence and so Nick can make his movie, too. This was always his story, the front page of the script even says so, but I was able to add my own little touches throughout that I think has made for a great collaborative effort.

Now I just look forward to making this thing....