Jules in the City Blog

Two successful scripts

Just after getting married, I participated in a whirlwind filmmaking weekend here in Washington, DC called the 48Hr Film Project.  Teams of filmmakers have just 48 hours to write, shoot and edit a 4-7 minute short film.  This year I was our team's head writer.  I like the role - it fit me well.

The contest rules are such that each team draws a genre out of a hat, and each script must include a specific line of dialogue, prop and character, all of which are announced at the kick off event.

It was great fun and even better to see a script I wrote (under the gun) come to life.  It wasn't anything I would ever have conceived on my own, but I am proud of our little movie.

My second script-to-screen success is in the form of an educational video aimed at getting middle-school kids thinking about becoming engineers.  I handled the interviews, wrote the outline script, and went on the shoot at the University of Iowa last weekend. It was quite a success.

I learned  how much writing a script "outline" can help on a shoot, when your talent is meant to  speak freely, and not word-for-word from a script.  Although we strayed greatly, we captured all of the material and will end up with an even stronger video because we let the topic and the talent drive the shoot.  Our result is a much more "real" looking piece.

There are still two more modules to look forward to writing.  Scriptwriting is certainly great fun, if one can allow room for talent to have an impact on the result.