Another World Reflections #1 – Week 1

Obstacle Course – Intro to Another World

It seems pretty simple to write a script. I mean, the act of physically writing or typing words on to a screen is a very rote ability that most of us have. This weeks classes got me thinking about how the actual process of writing the script doesn’t come or at least isn’t usually warranted until a lot of things have been sorted out.

Unless you’re some sort of genius, writing a script should follow intensive discussion and thorough thought processes about what the it is actually going to contain. Well to me at least. I’m not quite sure what the script writing process is but I know for sure that you can’t sit anybody down with a pen and paper and receive a million-dollar blockbuster hit in one go.

This much became apparent when we were tasked with creating an extension of the short film I’ll Wait for the Next One.

We must’ve had about 45 minutes to come up with something. In all that time we only managed to land on an idea we all liked in the last 3-5 minutes. It’s so easy to get swept up in every single idea that floats your way. I often found myself butting heads with certain members of the table which was expected to be sure but trying to navigate your language just that tiny bit extra to not step on toes too hard is a challenge in itself.

It seemed like we were on some sort of procedurally-generated obstacle course where jumping over one thing caused a pit to open up where we landed. This is kind of how I view it when you work with people who you don’t have a lot of experience and chemistry with. And we hadn’t even written the script yet! Just goes to show how much you actually need to flesh out before pen goes to paper.