Post Day 28 Assignment Here

[Don Thompson]

Don Thompson’s chronological edits

What I learned: I have used chronological edits in the past to great effect. They are, in fact, my favorite type of editing on a script.

I went through three chronological edits on the script for ‘Billy Budd’, looking to improve:

Flow, Clarity, Descriptions, Dialog

I am flagging this assignment as complete.

[BG]

Lesson 28 – The Chronological Edit

ASSIGNMENT

BG’s Chronological Edit

What I learned doing this assignment: Events of the story take place over 10 days. I went through it, counting the days and made sure one thing leads to another and later events do not occur before earlier ones. Tagline: From Wimp to Warrior in 10 Days!

[Robert Wood]

Robert Wood’s Chronological Edit

What I learned is that this is what I’ve already instinctively been doing in the last couple lessons, despite having in mind the specific lesson’s goal. I find it impossible to see an error and not correct it at the time I see it. Same with a bad line of dialogue (although I still have lots of those!) This is really how I always edit, and as I’ve just done a full chronological edit for lesson 27 I’m also marking this one complete as well, knowing full well that there’s still lots of work to do on the script as it’s only 76 pages long and I still need to find a considerable amount of story somewhere…

[Janeen Johnson]

Janeen’s Chronological Edit

What I learned doing this assignment is that I already put a lot of notes in, but needed to annotate character arc needs and dialogue personalization needs scene by scene so they would get done.

What I’ve done in the past that worked well was a non-chronological edit of things like character voices. I think I’ll do another pass for that.

This is the script I am taking through the Rewrite class so I’m not too worried that there are still some problems there.

I still have 2 action scenes that need to be “choreographed”. I have changed the text to green on those scenes and left notes for myself so when the action choreography comes to me, it should be quick to insert.

I also have only 72 pages so far and need a lot of clever repartee added when I do a humor edit. That’s not going to happen until I get the other two action scenes done and see how many pages I have left to play with in conversation. It’s fun to write clever conversations and I already have everything that’s needed for the story. Now I need to add characterization, character arc and just plain fun in my conversations.

[Benito Selim]

Benito Selim’s Chronological Edit

What I learned from this assignment is to continue making your story tight with scene edits.

I have deleted a lot of unnecessary scenes that dragged the story along. My biggest challenge was my climax and the final reveal, in my case of writing a horror script it was the big who done it and why? I am continuing to rewrite it but am happy so far with my final scenes for draft 2.

I may run into the issue of writing too much dialogue but I’m finding reading it out loud helps with this.

[Patrick Downey]

Patrick Downey – Chronological Edit

What I learned doing this assignment was that the format for reading through the script and finding the areas to focus on given by Hal were invaluable. It really helped to tie everything in together.

Improve the description – I used this tactic to work on my word choices, to make them stronger.

Improve the dialogue – There are conversation that I just love between characters and some I don’t, so I changed those around to flow better.

Improve the clarity – Due to the nature of my protagonist being deaf, there will be a lot of questions on how to get certain things across to the audience. So, if this is ever picked up, it will take some serious selling to get it to production.

[victor Valleau]

Vic Valleau #28 Solves Scene Problems Chronological Edit

What I learned doing this assignment: My story and lead characters journey is set.

I have about 20% of scenes written, in rough. I see myself falling back into old perfectionist wordsmithing habits, then rising above with these quick edits.

I identified a few problems and made prescribed improvements, more to go. I feel really pushed because I’m pitching to investors.

[andrea cabanas]

Andrea Cabañas, Chronological Edit.

What I learned with this: since lesson 26, I’ve been observing my story in different POVs, which I found very interesting and helpful to get to where I got. With this lesson, I improved more dialogues and cut other ones, making them sharper and straightforward to the point, giving the scene a better pace.

I cut/re-wrote some “series of shots” that helped a bit (I think) with passage of time (at least I get to the next draft!)—I also improved characters’ emotions toward actions (I loved doing this).

I could also see clearly where scenes didn’t flow, mainly dialogues that didn’t make more sense. AND only in the end, when I thought I didn’t have any chiché, I did realise that two of my characters were a cliche! I changed their features straight away!

I still need to work more on a scene that leads to my climax. This is the part of the script where I get a bit stuck because I always try to figure out better ways to describe the actions and make everything flow according to the tension involved. I confess this part of the script is where I feel ‘out of my comfort zone’ because there’s a bit of ‘man hunting’ involved, but I’m getting there.

My script has 113 pages, but I’m sure it will get reduced on my subsequent drafts since I wrote without mercy, without saving words.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by  andrea cabanas. Reason: Forgot to mention something else!

[Rebecca Jordan]

Rebecca Jordan’ chronological edits. Lesson 28

What I learned doing this assignment is that I could do endless edits on this before I’m completely satisfied.

I made several passes, simply because there are still many moving pieces. I tried to just focus on one thing at a time with each pass; however, I kept getting lost in the structure, moving back and forth in time. So the last pass was fast. quick fixing Flow and clarity, making notes. Worked on some dialogue. And though my descriptions/actions were already pretty tight, they were dry. So I worked on being more specific and creative with those.

I think I’m in pretty good shape as far as a second draft goes. So I have completed the course and will continue to work on the script. This was a great experience and very helpful process.

[Dana Abbott]

Dana’s Chronological Edit

What have I learned from this assignment?

I learned to read my screenplay as though I were reading it for the first time, reading from beginning to end and making notes before doing any rewrites. This helped me 1) understand the flow of the script, 2) identify missing details, 3) feel the progression of scenes, and 4) find jumps that didn’t make sense.

I used the worksheet and went through my script to solve the issued listed below

Improve the flow –

I moved a few scenes around to add greater meaning to my protagonists’ motives.

Improve the clarity –

The initial crime committed by my antagonists needed to be better defined. How they did it and who did what.

I also needed to figure out how the hard drive video surveillance system was reengineered to frame/convict my protagonists.

Improve the description –

I improved my character descriptions, giving them stronger identities to improve their motives and dialogue.

Improve the dialogue –

I cut dialogue, removed exposition, and created more subtext. I also allowed my characters to remain silent to strengthen conflict.

This is my third run at my script, but the first full rewrite. It is already stronger than the initial scenes and it will only improve with each rewrite.

[Lori Lance]

Lori’s Chronological Edit

Having late access to the class and taking the course alone made me feel disempowered. I ended up with a script that seemed like a Cliff Notes version of a full screenplay, but I am persevering. My biggest problem is with my outline. I’m going back to it to try to flesh out the story more. However, I love my characters and story, so I will stick with it until I am happy with the end result.