The Key to a Scene

When I first wrote Get Back, it was a very different kind of movie. It was an odd mix of serious drama and "cool" action... and as time has gone on, it has only grown and matured even more. One hazard of this maturity was that certain original elements no longer fit. Originally, Paul was to shoot two guns at the same time during a gunfight - just to give you an example. These ideas have slowly been weeded out as the characters and situations have changed. When we got together to rehearse the climax of the movie, we hit this problem again. The situation and characters had changed, and we had fallen into a very realistic take on things - and mapping it all out was just not working. We've been on a bit of a break since then, but the other night Nick and I talked on the phone, and the climax came up. We ended up talking it through for an hour; back and forth with good ideas and bad ones. We kept at it, though. At points we had gone so far as to add an extra character, and erase the scene completely... but the key to a scene is pretty much going to always be simplicity. Eventually Nick mentioned an idea I had the first night we tried rehearsing it, but there was still a fundamental flaw in logic that kept it from working. This idea would solve all of our problems, but how to make it work? Then, in a very casual manner, Nick said, "What if..." and he solved it. He not only solved it, but the scene is PERFECT because of it. Haha, that one little phrase he uttered completely fixed every problem with the climax, and in turn added even more layers of character complexity. I'm still in awe that we solved the scene so simply, and I have to give that one completely to Nick. He saved that scene.

Now, about that drive-by...