Opening lines I

Last month marked 2 years (sob) since I first had the idea for my film and began working on it. And yet its only in the last 2 weeks that I have started work on writing the very first lines of the film. Allow me to confess:

You see I never wrote a detailed script for the film before I started making it. I only wrote the story. This recipe for disaster happened because I wasn't even sure the narrative idea of the film could be made to work. Later when it seemed it could work I never took time out to write a more detailed script. Now I pay the price of these decisions as I try to edit - film - write - edit - film - write my way to the end or in this case the beginning.

The advantage of this approach though has been that the intuitive recording of real life (the film is 95% documentary footage) and the films slow development have generated more imaginative ideas that I ever could have thought up myself sitting with a pen and paper writing a script.

The other reason for the delay in writing the opening lines of the film is a more conventional one. Like many films the ending plugs into the beginning. Quite simply - I got halfway through editing the ending when I realised I couldn't go any further without first fixing the beginning.

And so off I went to tackle the beginning. See the post above.