One week left

I only have 2 big things left to do in the next week.

1) I have to finish Take Out. Sam thinks it needs a better title. I know I will never come up with a better title, but if anyone has a sudden inspiration feel free to share it. He said what about even Take Away, but I said that sounds too British. He thought it was a bit too generic and didn't say enough about what kind of film it was. Apart from potentially changing the title though, I think it's coming along very well. I'm at picture lock. John has a copy and is working on the score. I'm starting the rest of the sound design. And then I'll do color correction. Though in fact we get finals week to work on it as well. My last class is Wednesday the 1st, but we have until the 6th to turn in the copy for screening on the 8th.

2) I have to write an 8 page paper for Thesis Prep. That's not a lot of writing since she wants it double spaced, but it will take a lot of thought. We had one on one meetings with Mary Jane instead of a regular class today. We could ask her about the paper. I got one point clarified. Apparently the boys haven't even read the directions yet. Mostly we talked about my latest version of Grandpa's Getaways. She started out with "How much do you really want to pitch this for your thesis?" And I said I'd rather pitch the one I wrote for Debbie's class. She was relieved by that.


It's not that Mary Jane disliked the story idea, just that the script needs a lot of work. We talked about it for a while and we realized that some of the fundamental things that I was thinking weren't coming across to her at all. Not even a little. For example the idea that all his life Will has wanted to rescue May but has never gotten the chance since she's always rescuing him instead. And so he finds these little things about the nursing home more bothersome than is likely just because it gives him something to rescue May from. Mary Jane's response was oh I love that idea, but it didn't come across in the script at all.

She has said the script needs more specificity but I'm not sure I'm following what she means by that since A) I thought this version was more specific than the last, and B) what details I did put in she kept getting thrown out of the story by. So it was a lot of:

MJ: old people don't wear shoes with laces
ME: my grandmother had these funny sneakers with the laces off center so that when she crossed her leg to tie her shoes the laces were facing up.

and
MJ: All your references to Russians should really be Soviets
ME: Huh, when I was in high school in the 80s Russian and Soviet were used interchangeably to the point that when the Iron Curtain fell most of my generation was surprised that there were more than Russians in the Soviet Union. (Also I just checked and in the script for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy they use Russian 4 times more often than Soviet.)

and
MJ: There isn't anybody who doesn't drink coffee
ME: You couldn't pay me to drink a cup of coffee

and
MJ: Have you been to a nursing home? Annie would know what drinks May prefers.
ME: For years Blue was a therapy dog at a nursing home. I found the people there dedicated and well intentioned, but also overworked and with too many patients per nurse for much tolerance of anything that wasn't routine. And anyway I was looking for harmless things she could get wrong to make Will think he could "rescue" May.

And there were other sort of rules of scriptwriting that I was getting wrong all of which was adding up to keeping Mary Jane from really engaging with the story or the characters. I will still make this film. I like it. I think it will be cute. I know I can get good actors for it. And I really want to try to make a spy film. I just won't do it for my thesis. For a lot of different reasons it will be easier to pitch Ghost Tours to the committee. You have to know your audience and know what they want and Ghost Tours is much closer structurally and dynamically to what they're going to be looking for.