Final Draft

Since I last wrote, we turned around a third draft and got to hear it at a table read with a collection of very talented actors. I'd like to thank them all for donating their time and passion: Jared Brown, Ben Carlson, George Ghali, Gabriel Hogan, Helene Joy , Geoff Kolomayz, Melissa Kramer, Matthew Lemche, Zoie Palmer, Courtenay J. Stevens, Sugith Varughese, Asim Wali and Ron White.

It was an amazing experience to hear our characters come to life, and to get the questions and comments of the actors, even though they pointed out a flaw that we've had to return to the drawing board (literally) to address. Today is our last day in the story room, and I definitely feel sentimental. It's been rough sometimes, but the energy of bouncing our ideas off each other, and having the opportunity to contribute in the direction of this ship, has been outstanding. Very few awkward silences, lots of laughter and a true egoless collaborative spirit. Our producer Barbara Samuels has given us so much that we can take forward with us in our careers. I can only hope that getting to work with people this creative, professional and generous is preparing rather than spoiling me for my future collaborations.

We'll get out one more draft for Friday, and then we have a few weeks away from the Centre. A "working holiday" I'm calling it, as we will be working on the first draft of our original series pilot, a spec script or two, and our business plan. So the laptop will be coming on my travels! But I'm looking forward to sinking my teeth into all those projects, so it's not a burden at all! And I find I get great ideas staring out airplane and car windows...

Had time to take in great free entertainment the last two nights. On Monday, got to see the calling card projects of the writers and directors who are finishing up their CFC programs. Great stuff, congrats to them! And then last night, saw Snow Cake at an Academy screening, and then a groovy light and music show in Nathan Philips Square.

Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver in Snow Cake

Snow Cake is a beautiful film, though there were one or two moments where they crossed over the fine line of sentimentality that they tread so carefully through the whole film. Having met with composer Tim McCauley this week, I was perhaps overly-tuned in to the use of music to emphasize a point, and there was one speech that was perfectly beautiful on its own without my having to be told to pay attention to it with piano notes. Then they brought part of the speech back at the end of the film in voice over, when in my opinion, Alan Rickman could have just uttered a single word to bring us back to that moment. Ah well - a personal choice in a film of lots of great moments.

Another thing Tim said that impressed me was that sometimes he watches films ten times. I've been watching a large quantity of stuff over the last 8 months, but maybe I need to re-watch me some Friday Night Lights and Battlestar over the next few weeks to see just what it is that grabs me and won't let go.