Austin, A mentor, And making the movie 3 times

Have you been to The Austin Film Festival?  If not you should.  Over the years I've seen some amazing movies there including “Slumdog Millionaire”, “Precious”, “Silver Linings Playbook”, and “Nebraska”.  This year’s opening Friday night Paramount Theater presentation was a documentary on true indie spirit writer-director Richard Linklater. That film and a panel of filmmakers on “Directing Your Own Script” is part of my inspiration for undertaking the Film 48 project. Maybe next year we’ll be screening in Austin. (AFF can you hear me?) And perhaps then when I’m in a coffee shop small talking with a guy who looks familiar, maybe I’ll actually realize it’s world famous screenwriter John August (yeah that happened). 

The Austin Film Festival is primarily a writer’s festival, and that brings me to my writing mentor.  A friend of mine has written, I don’t know, I think it’s 20 scripts. He’s taken on a bit of a role as a mentor on this project, sending me tons of helpful tips and information, plus a few threats to help get me going. The support is nice, and the advice is better.  A lot of the advice is production advice, which is helpful but perhaps surprising from a writer. And yet, my mentor is deadly accurate in providing production tips. Because he understands that the writing IS the production.  If you write in 40 locations, 16 speaking parts, and a car jumping over a flaming school bus, you've written a movie that can’t be made in 24 hours of shooting on a zero dollar budget.

Which brings up the 3 times we’ll make this movie.  The first time is when it is written. That movie will exist in a beautifully perfect form – in one mind only.  The second time a movie gets made is when it is shot, often nothing at all like what was written.  The panel in Austin suggested that if you can get 70% of what you intended shot, you’re doing well.  The third creation of the film is in editing, trying to complete the story that it can be, from the footage that it is, based on the story you thought it would be.

For now though I need to be writing a movie, not a blog, and I’m waaaay behind the suggested timeline. Time to finish that story outline (even though my writing mentor is going to tell me it has too many speaking parts, and too many locations.)  FADE IN: a car flies in the air over a flaming school bus…