Progress has been made – I’ve found a script! Huzzah!
Acquiring an appropriate script presented a bit of a challenge, especially since I’m not supposed to have seen the film that the script comes from.
I only had a couple of notes for the script – I wanted it to be a dialogue scene between two characters sitting at a table. This has practical benefits because it is a simple setup. But it is also a common setup for film and TV. A simple dialogue scene like this usually means shot / reverse shot. But my investigation will force me to look at the script through the eyes of – or through my imagination of the eyes of – the specific teams of directors/DPs/editors that I choose.
Finding a script required me to:
- Ask people to recall scenes from films which involve dialogue between two characters sitting at a table.
- Research the screenplays of those films I haven’t seen that were recommended.
- Decide upon a script/scene.
I asked my family, my friends, but I didn’t make much progress until I put a call out on a Facebook group.
So, that’s what I’m doing. The long dialogue scene from Hunger (2008). Well, not all of it. I’m doing the first two pages of its script.
There may not be much narrative progress within those two pages, but that’s what’s kind of interesting about it. I’m really looking forward to seeing how my chosen coverage styles change the scene’s feel/reading/meaning/etc. Also, it doesn’t hurt that the dialogue is charged with tension (and I’ll be able to inject this tension into the scenes in varying ways).
It’s important to note that I haven’t seen the selected scene/film. I have, however, seen a screenshot of the scene and I’m aware that it’s a long take of some sort. But that’s as much knowledge as I have about it. I don’t know anything about pacing or camera movement, for example. I’m not even clear on what the whole film is about. (But I’ll likely watch it after this project – I’ve heard it’s brilliant.)
Here’s a page of the script to give you an idea of what I’ll be working from:
