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On Monday night we held the very first covid safe auditions. It was a new way of doing things. Everyone had to be tested before arrival but I must admit, it was nice to see everyone after writing this entire film over video call!
Safety out the way and the evening proceeded. The idea was to see how each candidate would look alongside our mother character. With such an intense story, it's imperative that the audience gets a feel for the strong bond between mother and daughter.
Each of the girls we auditioned were brave, professional and extremely talented.
It was a pleasure to watch them all. However there is only one part available and we have made our decision. It's our pleasure to welcome Zoe as our main character Ellie. Zoe brings a relatability to the character, that we're sure will pull at your heartstrings when you see the final product.
Well done Zoe! Next week we'll begin with a full table read and rehearsals each week. Stay tuned for weekly updates!
Last night's meeting we discussed feedback from a reader and discussed how rubbish Jess is because she didn't read it... But all that aside, the feedback received was no different to the discussions that Darren and myself had when writing it.
It's difficult to have the full freedom of imagination when actually you're a small town company who mostly do this for fun and gratification.
For instance, without access to a soundstage or set designer, you might not see a period film set on Mars coming from us any time soon....
But that doesn't mean we don't have different ideas we want to convey. In our current story we use letters as a method of contact. Obviously few people write letters anymore but they are genuine form of communication and I wanted to use that over the impersonal, modern email.
However we then have to justify why were using letters and ensure that this comes across in the film. It's not enough to say "well I just wanted to use letters" the characters have to want to use letters too. And in the modern day... WHY do people want to use letters.. With all this in our minds it was a tough one last night. But we hope you enjoy the story when we get to show you!
After four months of mostly 2 hour weekly meetings we have our finished first draft.
We now have the task of checking it though, checking we’ve tied up everything and checking if it all makes sense. It’s easy as writers to assume something is written on a page especially after you’ve had a long conversation about it to find out you didn’t commit it to paper.
We spent over an hour on the last piece of dialogue, trying to get the right words. Eventually a niggly little sentence was swapped round and suddenly all came good.
As we approach the end, we have to face that it's nearly finished draft one and although it's an exciting second step, it's also sad that the writing's nearly done.
Darren had done some very nice formatting of last week's scenes and now they read on paper more like we've pictured in our minds.
One thing we have had to really consider is how the words we say can actually come across. In particular with the way we say things if we're trying to not influence someone's decision. Sometimes it's as easy as moving a few words around but other times its avoiding words all together. You may be pleased to hear that there's no swearing in this one though... Used all of those up last time!
We’re now very close to finishing writing the script. We’re about 3-4 scenes away I would guess. There is still some question on finally closing out the script, but I think we’ve now written the most complicated of all the scenes.
We will check back next week just to make sure the characters have posed all the right questions and we are not leaving open questions with no real answers. Names are always the hardest not that the really matter, but it seemed easier to name a pet hamster than their owners!
Time flew by and am enjoying crafting the story. It will be a shame to come to the end of the writing, but I am sure there will be some re-writes before the final version is offered up for production.
