Melancholy Script Done

I did some work today on a script that I've had kicking around for about two years. It's based on a wonderful short story by Andrew Helms and it's called Photographs of Melancholy Girls.

I e-mailed Andrew shortly after I finished my first foray into no-budget filmmaking and asked if I could adapt his story for a short movie. There was something about it that just clicked with me when I first ran across it on his website and I thought it perfectly suited to being adapted for film. There was something emotionally true about the two characters and it was so brief but communicated everything that it needed to. As a short graphic story, it also had a strong visual senseand flow that seemed a no-brainer to me at that time.

Andrew responded to my e-mail saying that he had no problems with me giving it the ol' college try and officially gave his blessing to the project. I think he just assumed it would go nowhere seeing as most of the work he's posted online has been asked about but never delivered on, so it has always been at the back of my head to just try and deliver, but also to have something that he would enjoy and recognize and that I could be proud of.

I did run into some problems with the script, partly because the original relied so heavily on captions to tell the story. The main character (who is unnamed in the strip but whom I dubbed Andrew, in honour of his creator) narrates so much of the story, giving you the background and driving the narrative, but because it switches back and forth so quickly during some sequences there was an awkwardness to it that I realized I would have to address.

I spent several hours today going over the script again, cleaning it up and coming up with some solid solutions. I think I managed it. I think it's done.

I'm proud of how it came out, so far. I haven't gone back to reread it since I transferred it into Final Draft but I think it holds up well. The wife tells me it's ready and shootable and I'm waiting on a few more opinions before putting myself in the position where I have to decide if this will, indeed, be the next short I shoot (or try to shoot, I'm not kidding anyone here, least of all me).

I have another script that's pretty much ready to go and I'm nowhere near as emotionally involved in that one, so it's a definite contender. Still, there are some cool things at work in Melancholy Girls that I wouldn't mind exploring. I don't know if Andrew intended it, but as I was picking it apart and putting it back together as a screenplay, I found some neat structural and thematic things that I didn't consciously notice when I first read it. It's probably the stuff that spoke to me in the first place but I wasn't looking for them at the time. If he didn't intend them, even better.

I know I'm talking in circles here but the main fear is trying to tackle something I care about and not getting anywhere close to what I want as a final product. The main argument for doing the other picture would be to develop some stronger technical skills on something I'm less fussy about, but...

Enough pontificating. I'm going to read some Gunslinger and hit the sack. If anyone is out there reading this, feel free to chime in with any thoughts.

Good night.