[BLOG] The Cynical Owl Status Update..
We working homie!
We’ve been quiet around here mainly because we have our hands in a slew of projects right now, including getting our baby “SHE” into the hands of a very talented editor who’s going to whip her into shape and get her ready for festivals.
The purpose of the blog remains to provide an almost episodic perspective of what it’s like to trudge it out here in the film industry and I apologize if we’ve been mum about that. One thing that last year has taught me is that it’s better to show a person than to tell a person. There are so many blog, articles and anecdotes that relate to the production portion of filmmaking, but not the full pre to post to screening portion so we will try to fill in that gap.
We’re currently in the development stage on three short films and a feature. In order to keep ourselves on track, we’ve implemented a writing schedule: Development Monday, Feature Tuesday, New Short Thursdays and Overview Saturday.
DEVELOPMENT MONDAY
Every Monday, the team will meet up to throw around ideas for a film. Once we’ve fleshed out an idea (creating a full ACT 1, 2 and 3), we write out those acts in a document and I begin to craft the first draft of the project.
We’re currently past this stage (having begun to develop 3 shorts) so our Monday are now read-throughs. We’ll all read the script, give notes and prepare the next draft.
FEATURE TUESDAY
Since sometime last year I’ve begun to REALLY work on a feature project that I’ve been working on for 5 years now (woah)! Instead of going through the agonizing routine of self-editing, we work on the script together by the acts. Right now, Act 1 & 2 are very strong and we are now working on strengthening Act 3.
NEW SHORT THURSDAY
This day is strictly dedicated to the shorts that we’ve developed on Monday. Again, we work on these stories by the acts so that we aren’t spending too much time on the overall weight of the film. I turn in these scripts on Saturday and we discuss them on Thursday.
OVERVIEW SATURDAY
The main purpose of overview Saturday is to make sure that we are keeping ourselves responsible for these deadlines. We go over the work we’ve done for the week and strategize how we can strengthen the process be it that we have an extra pair of eyes look at the drafts or we meet more or meet less.
This entire process has increased the productivity of the company as well as kept us focused on what’s most important: making films. We’re occupying Starbucks, in every borough, weekly to keep us headed towards that goal. We took a step back to organize this process and while there are still kinks to this writing method, this is the most productive we’ve ever been as a company. It has made me excited to write again and has made me more responsible for making deadlines.
We’ll keep you guys updated as we go along!