October 21, 2021
The first line. We don’t ever want to tell the audience where we’re going. So, you’ve got to tell me a funny story, man. “Wow. This girl. OMG. What would you have done?” So i’m your buddy. I’m going to stay on the screen with you, now you’ve got to talk to me. “So that girl you’re dating man. So, how’d it go?” Now, forget that it’s a sad ending, we don’t know that yet. Remember folks another note: all stories begin from the point of innocence. When you say: “Man I would’ve destroyed myself for this girl.” That’s how you felt in the beginning. Now, at the end, you didn’t realize that those words turned out to be rather prophetic, because now you’re not quite sure you want to live anymore. In the beginning it’s like “Wow!”. I have heard fellows say, not confessing that I had said this, but i’ve heard guys say “I would’ve cut a finger off for her. I would’ve cut off a toe for her. Right? I mean, wow, I couldn’t believe that she would talk to me.” Start from there. Let’s start from there and we’re gonna slowly work through the beginning, because, folks, finding the truth in the beginning, it starts to have à locomotive force, because when you’re taking the time to really see who you’re talking to and have determined why you’re saying this stuff, now you can revise it, but the most important thing is you make initial choices. You make inIitial choices. We have a phrase in screenwriting that “scripts aren’t written, they are rewritten”. So you just have to write fast, don’t think, then you’ll rewrite that. Down the road, maybe you won’t even need a rewrite, you don’t know, but if you stop to edit while you’re writing, you’re watching what you’re doing, ok? I also find, folks, it’s a very good idea, before you begin to work, to actually close your eyes for a few moments and tell yourself you’re going into the right side of your brain. You’re going into the imaginative realm. I find that actors go right to the words, but the words are what the writer gives us, as i’ve been saying lately, it’s like a coloring book and you have to get the crayons and you have to get the 64 Crayolas and you have to color it in, because if you’re just reading the words, you’re gonna give an intelligent reading, but we won’t be moved by it.