Rough Diamond

Rough Diamond is a feature written by the fantastic comedian/actor Steve E Blunder. It's the story of his father as he gets messed up in a diamond robbery gone wrong, the bad side of the law and the his family as he is accused of stealing the diamonds. 

I received the first final draft of this script and began analysing it. Most of my corrections were cosmetic, touching up spelling and format errors but a few things stood out.

In this film, it's obvious that we are to sympathise with Steven, but we see the film through the eyes of his Father and the people involved in the robbery. Like the film Big Fish, it's a film where the main character, isn't the protagonist who undergoes the change. 

My concerns with the story were that as it was written by Steven, he has a single idea on how each character was, what they did and why they did it. He's directly involved. He already had a bias which limited his capability to explore characters. They were real people so he skipped over the character aspect of the script. 

I suggested that all the negativity about his Father, could be an outward projection of what he wants people to see him as. And it worked, as that's how Steve sees him. But I thought, there could be a more sincere side to him. People often to the wrong things to get what they want. I thought that his Father actually wanted to be a good father and loved Steve very much, just didn't know how to express it. Steve never thought of that because he had a single image of his Father his whole life. 

Changing that, made his Father have a more humanised character and I think, made the script much better as it added depth and layers that some characters saw and some didn't. 

Also, I felt that if Steve is the protagonist despite not seeing him much, we needed to see him on his adventures through childhood without a Father. There is a point where little Steve is playing with friends and goes against his Mothers wishes and plays in a dangerous place. I thought that this should be shown, as it would show us Steven on his own without guidance and show a little of who he is.

There is also an archive footage clip at the end which I didn't feel belonged there. I don't know if it's been taken out or not but I have been send version 2 of the script and will update this after I do my second script analysis.

Second version - The Rewrite

I received the second version from Steve and and we had a meeting about my thoughts. He has had a meeting with a rep from a major movie studio who said that once the script is finalised they would be interested in it.  They wanted to have a main part as an American. Me and Steve were both on the same wavelength about making the villain and the corrupt cop Americans. We felt they were both fish out of water in the script so making them a different nationality made the most sense.

My suggestions:

I thought that the main villain wasn't too evil in contrast to our anti-hero who seemed an even match for him. I thought it would make more sense and work better for the drama to make the villain much worse than our anti-hero.

Another point I made was that we needed to see more of Bert and Steven when Steven was a young boy. For someone who makes a huge impact on the story, I thought he needed more screen time and we needed to see the significance he played.

I also felt that the corrupt cop who got punished by the villain, wasn't punished enough. In movie terms, he commits unspeakable crimes and needed absolutely severe punishment, the most in the film. Now, Steve is going to write in a much more fitting sentence for our corrupt scum-bag.

Finally, I felt the ending scene needed more screen time. It is a scene with the potential to be highly emotional and moving and was cut short because that's what actually happened. For the sake of the movie, I asked Steve to rewrite the scene and make it the most emotional damn scene he could write. I look forward to experiencing his rewrite very much.

I threw a couple of ideas to enhance what was already there for drama and tension, how he might go about writing a few things in. I don't want to spoil the movie ending or contents but based on our meeting, the rewrite is going to be absolutely incredible !!!

On the last note, the archive footage from the first script which I had issues with wasn't present this time. I don't know if it changed or what, but it fit this time. I didn't even notice it was there.

Way Out

Way Out is a project I'm not actually involved in. It is written and directed by Warun Chanat and is about a man trying to escape the recent past of living on a council estate while pursuing a girl in a flower shop.

I was sent this script to look over and give feedback.

There was a Goliath sized portion of missing action, scene headings and badly formatted scenes but that's not what I will focus on. The story is what's important!

The original screenplay focussed on two stories: The main male character and the girl he is pursuing. His story is about how he is trying to find out about her then gets mixed up in his brother's drug selling which climaxes at his brothers murder in front of him. Her story, is about her abuse by her flat mates who literally condemn her for just being herself.  She ends up being  a target for them and ends up throwing herself off the balcony.

The first issue I saw was that I didn't care about the female lead (Amy) at all. It's tragic what happens to her but I don't know anything about her nor do I care for her at all. She was just there, a plot device to show suffering and a tragic suicide. There was no character to Amy so there was no character development.

My next issue was that we were introduced to a character via a phone (Dana) who is our male leads brother's girlfriend. By their exchange, I found the character of Dana interesting. We don't see her despite being married to a man who dies. His  brother. We see our heroes grief but that's it. There is a wonderful relationship between Dana and his brother that we don't get to see.

My next issue was that the plot was a plot for the sake of being the plot. The character of Amy was nothing but a chess piece, and some dialogue and actions seemed unrealistic to me and didn't fit in with their characters  we had seen.

My final issue was that of the flashback sequence.  I felt it was in the wrong place. We see (as far as I recall) a man, nervous and anxious standing by the two brothers after his brother  beat the guy up because he owes him money. We get a flash back of the anxious man telling some gang members who tell him to stab him. We come back to normal time and he stab him. This flashback was too early. We needed to see the knife in my opinion and let the tension rise. The original way's system of questions and answers was: What's he doing? He's going to stab him? He stabbed him. The way I proposed would have: What's he doing? He has a knife? Is he going to stab him? He was told to stab him? Will he do it? He stabbed him! The way I suggested, I feel was a much better way of doing it for dramatic purposes.

After our meeting, the writer/director did what I suggested and thinks the script is far better of for it. The changes are:
-Amy's storyline is now down to a minimum so it adds to the heroes story and doesn't detract from it
-Dana has been added in to show the relationship between her and his brother
-Amy is no longer a target for abuse but a symbol of hope for the hero
-The flashback scene has been moved to where I said to make it more dramatic, tense and better suit a questions and answers style

With version 2, I haven't seen it but should I, I will do a second entry on this blog. As it stands now, I think their script is much better, all focusses around the central hero and the B story is that which intertwines with the A story, instead of being two stories that happen to be in the same kind of place.

Daddy's Girl

Daddy's girl is the story about a freshly single parent - Martin, and his happy and chirpy daughter Daisy.

I got asked by the actor playing Martin, Steve Ward, if I had any shorts I could cast him and his daughter in to start her acting carear. Instead of saying no, I agreed to write, direct, shoot and edit a short specially for them.

The first challenge was to think to myself, "What is this film about?". I asked Steve a few simple questions such as where do you live, what does your daughter like doing ect. I came away from that  knowing that he's a plumber, she likes singing and dancing and live in a sort of temporary home that needs decorating by my understanding. From there it all fit into place immediately.

A plumber is a phsycal and messy job, I had thoughts of instead of a plumber, Martin would be a plasterer. The definition of mucky, coming home exhausted to his energetic little girl. OK, we have a starting point. I began working on the character of Martin: He is a single parent. Why? Either he left her, or she left him. Then the idea sprung into my mind that he's a messy plasterer who was emasculated by his ex wife/girlfriend. She left him, leaving him feeling pretty worthless and as a result, has a head full of doubts and is convinced that he isn't a good enough man, and a good enough father.

Next, all I needed to do was make Daisy the polar opposite of Martin. She is happy, energetic and cheerful. She likes singing and dancing and unlike Martin, can see things for what they are. She appreciates all her dad does for her and loves him dearly because of it. Now we have our dynamic.

Then it was a question of how to tell the story. I thought that the theme we're going with here is a sweet little girl who loves her Daddy, trying to cheer him up. He's feeling low and thinks he isn't good enough. I wanted a film that is extremely sweet and heart warming so I thought: "It's always nicest when someone thinks they're not good enough, but then someone gives them unconditional love and shows them that in fact, they are the most important person in the world." That euphoric feeling of complete acceptance and purpose is magical and an amazing feeling.

That was the basis of the decision to tell the story through his eyes, through what he sees and experiences. When we see the first half of the story through Martin, we feel his pain, his loneliness and his sense of not being good enough. Then, when we get the exact same  story but through Daisy's eyes, that is flipped on it's head and all those intense feelings of suffering, loneliness and pain are transformed. They springboard into heart warming happiness and empathy, not just for Daisy but for Martin. When we see the full picture after seeing his darkness, we see how truly beautiful their relationship is.

I enjoy flipping perceptions on their heads and showing a new angle, a new thought line, a new idea. At the end of the film, it comes down to the simplest concept: He's suffering but doing the best he can, and she knows this and loves him more than anyone. At the end of the day, they both love each other more than anything. That's what the film is about.

The Big Game

1st Draft

The first draft was meant to be a 40 minute film. This was before the idea got broken into 4 10 minute episodes. The gangsters drive down a country road, make their way to the flat and look around. Chip knocks on a neighbours door then they hit up a launderette, sett drugs, buy guns and then walk through a casino. They steal the money of the manager and find thugs waiting for them at their flat. They get taken to Big Al's "bookies" which turns sour when loan sharks crash the meeting. The gangsters get away, Kid has been shot. They dump him outside a hospital just before Boss walks in to see him. He meets Marlowe and leaves confused. He meets Phyllis outside who agrees to work for them. After a montage they celebrate their plan being complete in a pub. On leaving, Phyllis is gunned down, Boss meets with Marlowe before storming Big Al's office to settle things cone and for all. 

Final Draft - Ver 1

The annotations to the script for version 1 were very cosmetic. Dialogue and action trimming to take out non-essential words and sentences. It was a trimming down more than anything. I also added in description and dialogue where it seemed ambiguous or when you wasn't sure as a reader what exactly was happening and how. 

After having a table reading I asked each actor "where do you think your character has just been from?". Lloyd playing boss said, "I think he's just been in jail." That line opened up a huge array of possibilities in my head. Boss fresh out of prison fits with why they didn't do much research before moving. For that reason, the flat interior first scene includes a part where Boss is captivated by the light entering the window, implying he''s been without a window without bars for a while. 

I had a separate reading with Michael (Doc) and Marco (Kid). Michael posed a troubling question "If Doc is the brains, I would have thought he would have done his research before leaving." This trumped me until I remembered what Lloyd said. This is how the part of the story emerged that Boss got out of prison and put a last minute team together and went without notice. 

In the first reading, Mark (Fence) said that he thought Fence had been doing mercenary work, I envisioned Fence as a calm collected man but seeing how Mark gave him a sort of sassy, more hardened portrayal, I thought that suited better and thus the character changed for the better. That was the basis for all of Fence's lines from there on: Attitude. 

Then I began rewriting the dialogue and some actions based on the table reading. The actors in my film to be gave me a lot to think about. They all brought something unique to the table and an insight that added to what was already there. 

Ver 2

In version 2, the script went through some radical changes. Locations were changed to better suit what we had. The launderette became a cafe, the basketball court for the drug deal became an underpass more for atmosphere than anything.

One of the most major changes was the decision to split the story into 4 10 minute episodes. This was to save time on shooting, save money, help with funding and distribution and to make filming easier. If we have episodes to go by, we could be more focused on each one as individuals that create a whole. 

The changes to the script from then were very cosmetic. Cleaning up dialogue and actions in places, but for episode 1 only. We are filming episode 1 first so that's getting the entirety of our attention. 

Ver 3

This version was a drastic rewrite. We have our fair share of budget concerns as well as location problems. From this version: The country road is now a sub-urban road, the neighbour scene is outside instead of through a doorway and the casino walkthrough scene has been entirely cut and replaced with a scene where they walk to the entrance and it cuts to them kicking in the office door. The script is better now for having it taken out as it was raised to out attention by a veteran production designer that the scene didn't reflect our style very well. Some dialogue has been replaced, removed or added and some actions were tidied up. 

This version is more in-keeping with the environment of Thamesmead where we will film so it has a more defined style which I think is better. It makes more sense than before where it was a little hit and miss with locations, looking back.