I’ve written and plan to direct a short film titled “A Moment In Love” and, last weekend, I had a read through with the lead actor and actress, mainly to scrutinize the dialog.
Everything went well and was a great first time experience for me. It was fun, a lot of laughing. It was definitely odd hearing/seeing what’s mainly been in my head, for the last couple months, interpreted by others and acted out before me. I kept wanting to cringe, it was just that weird to me, like someone reading my private journal out loud, lol!
I recorded the session with my iPhone and Phocus attachments so I could study it outside of the moment and I’ve learned a few things from it.
Main thing was that the dialog is pretty tight, no need for any changes other than taking out the dialog/pauses/stops/beats I hear in my head and put on page, and just let the actors pause and stop where/when/if they feel it’s needed in the moment. I’ve heard that you shouldn’t put pauses in script dialog and now I have a better understanding as to why.
For the next reading, there are a few things I want to try out camera wise just for fun.
Another first time script-thing I did in the past week was the script breakdown, which is I think, the THE MOST BORING TASK I’VE DONE connected to screenwriting thus far. Tedious and boring, but necessary.
Next things on my list is Lining the Script and Storyboards, which I can’t wait to do. I’ll let you’ll know how it goes.
scribereglyph 