Draft One – 28.5 pages

We’re just about a third of the way there. The average low-budget screenplay should be between 90 and 100 pages. Each page represents close to one minute of screen time so we have a 28 and a half minute movie so far. Kind of cool. Characters are truly taking coming to life on the page. I’m going to expand on a few of their backstories tonight by writing a more detailed biography for each one. It’s a little trick I used to get into character when acting.

The story is headed in an interesting direction and is shaping up nicely. The need for a second draft is becoming apparent as well. As we’ve heard it said, “nothing is ever written, it’s re-written”. How right that is.

The first draft of the short contained within the feature is sitting here on the desk in front of me. Printed out and formtted with a nice title page. Now that gives me a sense of accomplishment. One step is complete and here in the real world. Cool!

I’m also reading The Six Day Horror Movie by Indie movie director Michael P. DiPaolo. He took $5000 and six days to make his feature zombie film, Daddy. We’re hoping to have a little more than $5k and 6 days with which to shoot this movie, but it helps to see that it’s possible and read about how it was done.