Last week I was expecting to get back the manuscript of my novel from my partner so I could start editing. I still don’t have it back so, restless, I started working on this short film script I’d brainstormed recently that I mentioned in my last post. Exactly one week later, I have a first draft. Funny thing, though – in fully-exploring the story and main character it’s gone well beyond anything like a standard short film. The first draft is 45 pages. So is it a super-long short that I need to cut down to 30 pages at most? Or a mini-feature? Or an episode of “The Outer Limits” with no “Outer Limits” banner to appear under?
What’s funny is, because this script is primarily about a single character alone in an environment, I looked up Sofia Coppola’s shooting draft for “Somewhere” – it’s only 43 pages long. That became a 97-minute feature that frequently moved at a pace which was frakking excruciating, so maybe this is 45 pages that becomes 75 minutes. In which case – um, I think I just wrote the first draft of a feature in a week.