Timeline

Haven't been a lot of newsworthy items on the Sixufus front lately.  Seems post was mostly shut down over Christmas, while Anaik Films is gearing up for other productions - A short, two other feature-lengths. 


Looking back, I see where the script was finished in early September, 2009.  The project started before that, so you could say this film has been a work in progress for one and a half years.  Flies by when you're working on it - Honing it, building it up, scraping away the rough edges.  But it positively crawls by when you're waiting in the wings.


Post production has claimed it's victims, film-wise.  I've already lost one to post.  But the good news is, Sixufus is not one of those -


The latest from Maurice Moore is that the going is slow, but it's steady.  The film is being edited by the brothers Rios in Spain; Maurice is in LA.  There's a time gap (9 hours) that they must cross on a regular basis, with Moe seeing rough cuts of various scenes and the brothers working off his notes.  Meanwhile, everyone has to keep the bills paid via their day jobs.  


At this rate, we expect a rough cut of the entire film at some point in February.  


This doesn't mean it will be done.  No.  This is merely the foundation of post, upon which all of the shining key pieces (such as music and sound) will be built.  But it is a significant milestone on the Sixufus timeline....  

Getting closer....

... to shooting, that is.  The latest word is, the Brothers Rios arrive in LA 4/24/10, do a week of pre-production strategizing, then out come the lights, cameras, and action! for principal photography beginning 5/1/10 (or therebouts).

And in typical indie fashion, Maurice got in touch with the writer (ahem) with a change for one of the key scenes.  Turns out we couldn't get a locale for Mayor Doreen's office, but we COULD get a restaurant locale.  (I would have thought it would be the other way around, but that's showbiz.)  Change in script required.

Fired up the last version of the script (Draft 6, dated 2/25/10), changed the locale in the slugline.  In a fit of inspiration, called Moe and asked if we could add a character.  He said go for it.  Back to work I went, and ended up with a scene that got more done, story-telling-wise, than before.

I love it when a spontaneous plan comes together.

Be back soon with on-set stills.  As they become available, of course.

Preproduction: The Script

Hey:  I finished the first draft of the screenplay!  Sweet.  Went ahead and registered it with the WGAw, #1380655.

For some reason, I feel as though I've gotten through the hard part, the two-a-days before the real season begins.  Is this common?  As a writer, this would have been the moment of glory, the point at which I would sit and bask in my (now not-so-uncommon) accomplishment.  But for this project, I feel like it's just the first hurdle.  I'm glad to be past it, but I've still got 12 zillion more to hop over.  Is this how Christopher Nolan feels?

At any rate, it occurs to me that perhaps I can add a tidbit to the body of screenplay-writing knowledge.  It's this:  Drop the 3-act structure for a 4-act structure.

I've written enough feature-length scripts (13?) to recognize a pattern:  Start off gangbusters, then somewhere between pages 28 and 40, BANG.  You hit the wall.  Maybe this has happened to you before.  My hypothesis is that for you 3-act folks, that huge honking Act 2 is too big of an elephant to eat in one sitting.  You're looking at all those pages left to write, and there's no milestones between pages 22 and 72.

Furthermore, you may be tempted to think that nothing really needs to change much in your story for those 50+ pages.  Apart from the rising tension, that is.  So, force that change by splitting that sucker in two.  Or rather, force your mind to recognize that something significant needs to happen somewhere around there.

Imagine now you're writing 4 acts.  You get to page 32 and, instead of picturing the next milestone 40 pages away, you can look up and see the thing leering down at you, a mere 18 pages away.

No guarantees here.  Just sayin'.  It works for me, consistently.  Might work for you.

Up next:  Some tidbits from the script.  Don't want to give too much away.  Not yet.