Script Development

The project actually spawned from a group of actors (now called JYMDICK Productions) that I met with every week to practice scenes, do mock auditions, etc. Something I recommend for all the actors out there. You never know where it'll lead.

We came up with the idea for the story through a lot of brainstorming and group effort. We based the characters on the personalities of the actors taken to the extremes of four diametrically opposed personality archetypes we found in a psychology book. Then we shot an improvisation of the storyline on a camcorder. I took the tape home and hammered out a script using the dialogue from the improv.

The next week we met and discussed the script, making changes according to group opinion. Every actor had a chance to review his or her lines and make revisions, as long as everyone agreed to them. Amazingly, this process went very smoothly. Ask ANYONE: writing with a partner is hard; writing with four partners is unheard of. After a couple of weeks we had a script we all were happy to shoot. This was dumb luck. If we didn't have a solid group to begin with, where everyone was willing to put their actor egos aside and compromise, we would have gotten nowhere fast. I don't recommend writing like this, although the improv is a great tool regardless.

The script has its flaws, but it was a quirky, fun story and it wasn't far off the formula for good screenwriting. By formula I mean beginning, middle, and end sandwiching two inciting incidences or plot points, which occur at the correct relative times. This sounds like a bunch of BS, even as I'm writing it. To get an idea of proper screenwriting from someone who knows what they're talking about, check out Syd Field's Screenwriting Workshop. I did.

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