Tenspeed & Brownshoe

Monday, May 01, 2006


There is a wonderful moment I have been savoring recently.
You get an idea for a screenplay, and for once, you get the whole idea and you can see it through to the end.
You spend the time, and you outline and write and rewrite and tweak.
Then you type the words THE END or FADE OUT if that is your jam-
Then for a little while, you have made something.
This script, the movie in your head- the movie you wrote because no one else had is yours and yours alone.
A first draft.
Black words on clean white paper.
Soon, opinions about the script will influence it, thoughts and suggestions will infiltrate the script and forever change your perspective about it.
Soon, the lines will be words in actors mouths, changed, cut, forgotten.
This is of course inevitable, it's purpose.
A Thanksgiving feast laid out on the table before it is devoured and someone says, inevitably,
"It almost looks to good to eat."
So take a moment with that stack of pages on your desk that just came out of the printer and know that you made something today.

I did not ask to be Brownshoe.