Rough cut

I have now seen the rough cut of the chunk of Monsters that we shot.

Interesting.

The producer expressed pleasure that even this initial rough cut was better than what she's used to seeing. And it seems that we were all pretty much agreed on what needed to be done - in my case I knew something needed to be done but didn't quite know what it was. I'm new to this part of the game.

We have two weeks left and are planning to get it finished in one. I say "we" but there's not a huge amount I can do now. We've decided to have a little explanatory text at the start because coming into these scenes ignorant of the story could be confusing.

One lesson I have learned: If you're writing a piece of dialogue where Speaker A gets interrupted by Speaker B, then write a good chunk (if not all) of Speaker A's interrupted speech. Otherwise you get the situation where Speaker A trails off waiting for the interruption, instead of actually getting interrupted mid-flow. With the whole speech in place Speaker B can just interrupt as needed, and really do it.

Once again there was discussion about cutting lines - they were kind enough to ask if it was alright with me? Depends on the line, of course, but generally I am not bothered. As long as the heart of the scene stays in place (and it works as a whole) it doesn't matter.

There are, of course, things that we don't have enough coverage for, but as far as I can tell that's par for the course.

So it's onwards and upwards. Two weeks to Cheltenham. Eeek.

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What's on the turntable? "Do It Again" by Steely Dan from "Can't Buy a Thrill"