John August and the Eternal Sunshine edit

I have something very embarrassing, and very funny, to write about. However, I’m trying to decide if it’s something I really wanna blog about. I think I do, as it’s not something that I’m not doing a very good job of hiding as it is…..and, as do all pesterly things that demand my attention, it keeps on surfacing all around me….in more ways than I can deny.

And it is really funny.

It’s one of those things that’s very much falling under the category of “just go with it.”

But it’s not really a Monday morning blog. It’s a little more along the lines of a “gearing up into the weekend” blog.

So for today, I’ll share my love for John August & my recent experience with the Eternal Sunshine edit.

John August came into my radar ala “Go.” I feel like a lot of my friends assume that I’m only into dark, arty films. But I love anything that’s clever, entertaining, well written and well executed. I love “Go.”

One of the most often heard pieces of advice that I’ve received over the years as far as screenwriting goes is, “Get your hands on spec scripts. Read as many of them as you possibly can.”

This was easy as hell when I was in the industry. Covering scripts was part of my job. Although I didn’t get to do it as much as I wanted to. I was too busy coordinating with the studios, with the agents, with all the other executive assistants in town. I was too busy deciphering complex legal documents and trying to translate them. I hated it (and the knowledge I attained through my tenure has continued to benefit me to this day.)

I’d always bring armloads of scripts home to cover on nights and weekends and then I’d end up in the office well into the nights & over the weekends and Adam would read and cover the scripts for me. ( (To those screenwriters, I apologize….you had (at the time) a Sound Effects Editor telling our story department to “pass.” ))

Anyway, our VP of Development (who was an uber cool guy) would always usher me over to the enormous pile of incoming scripts and say, “Here. You wanna learn about screenwriting? Read these. This is how NOT to write.”

Nine and a half times out of ten, the writing was deplorable.

That VP of Development had an entire wall of specs. I loved it. He and I shared an unspoken understanding of how fucked up the environment was that we worked in. Countless times throughout the day make I would make my way into his office, the only space that had even a remote hint of chill energy. I would kneel by him and let the wall of scripts overtake my field of vision.

“This place sucks,” I would bitch.

“Yeah. Wanna get the hell outta here and go get me a falafel sandwich?”

“Yes. Anything.”

We would always escape in each other’s shared smirks whenever we’d get lost under the weight of the hell that was that damn production company.

I’ve lost touch with him over the years, but would love nothing more than to reconnect with him...

After leaving LA, I noticed how difficult it is to get your hands on good spec scripts. Most things to be found online are shooting scripts. And for the ones I am able to scavenge, I can never really be sure of the draft date that is listed. In other words, how many times has the draft I’m reading already been rewritten?

Give me the original. I want the original.

Ever since the VP’s wall of scripts, it has been a desire of my to create my own. I always let the cost stand in my way: that’s a lot of paper and toner cartridges. But I’m tired of excuses and I’m tired of succumbing to my false belief that “there’s not enough” money.

So three weeks ago I downloaded Kaufman’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”

Only my Screenwriter software was not agreeing with the Final Draft version that was available. This meant I had a lot of editing to do.

So along with downloading and reading a script a week, I started reading screenwriter’s blogs. I love how observant writers are. They’re always listening for that next great piece of dialogue to snag. They’re always on the hunt for a clever pairing of words, for the key that unlocks the mystery of the not-quite-there-scene. They’re always capturing and regurgitating the backwards-ass ironies of every day life.

And, for the most part, they can be fucking hilarious when they’re not holing themselves up during their cavernous isolationist periods.

I highly recommend the following two of August’s (non-industry-related) blogs:

1. A message to Dr. Phil

http://johnaugust.com/archives/2005/a-message-to-dr-phil

A lot of the blog comments are pretty good on this one, too.

2. Don’t panic as you hit the panic button

http://johnaugust.com/archives/2005/dont-panic-as-you-hit-the-panic-button

For the panic button, be sure and read the text first and then click on the picture of the sign so that you can read, line for line, exactly what it says.

Anyway, I don’t think it was August’s advice (for the life of me, I can’t remember who said this) but it was a screenwriter and his advice was to type word-for-word your favorite scripts. The whole follow what you love mentality. Get into the rhythms of your idols: their structure, their set up, description, dialogue.

The stubborn pioneer that wants to pave her own way has always felt this path to be too time consuming, too laborious.

“Damn. That sounds like work.”

And then it happened kind of by accident. I was proofing the Eternal Sunshine download and I started to notice a lot of the description had dialogue in it. So I combed the entirety of the script, reading only the description and I shifted the occasional dialogue hiccup that was in the wrong place.

Then I combed the entirety of the script reading the dialogue only and I found that a lot of the dialogue had description in it.

Obviously some software formula glitch. I tried, for a while, to find the quick-key fix. (It wasn’t meant to be found.)

This resulted in my reading, editing and polishing Charlie Kaufman’s nearly original script (twice). It also allowed me the perspective of reading the story from the perspectives of: description only and then dialogue only.

I got a feel for his cadence, the “realness” of his dialogue.

I found out that the original script was a lot heavier than what ended up on screen.

The last ten pages, literally, had me shivering.

“Damn. That Charlie is one dark motherfucker.”

And I laugh at all the passes we’ve gotten. Not to pat ourselves on the back or anything, but we’ve been blessed with some detailed and bountiful praise. But the catch is always that it’s just “a little too dark.” (Really. Like darker than “Requiem for a Dream”, “Boys Don’t Cry”, or “Happiness?” Darker than Kaufman’s original of “Eternal Sunshine?”)

Tangent. Steering it back to conclusion crossing.

I have a clean, hard ESOTSM copy that I can read as an all-inclusive piece. And I have restarted the project that was born years ago: the wall of scripts.