Damn the Damsel

 

You learn a lot when you put in the work.

On Saturday we brought actors into the studio and recorded the entire script.  Thank you Levi, Dave, Amber, and Megan.  We all doubled up on parts; I think I played at least 5 or 6 minor characters, and so did Murray and Curtis.  We're using this recording as a scratch track, and animating the storyboards so we know exactly the shots we want, and the pacing of the script becomes obvious.

Even without the animatics, it became obvious on Saturday that we have to make some changes to our lead female character.  We've had all these discussions about who she is and what motivates her, and she is intriguing to us, but after we got done recording Murray and I couldn't believe what a poor job we've done of making that come across in the script.  She spends most of her time as the damsel in distress and she's just not interesting at all.

So we came up with some serious changes and I'm excited to see them play out.

But I'm so glad we're putting in the work on pre-production.  This is where it's easy and a lot cheaper.  I'm anxious to move on to casting and filming and making the movie, but all this prep work is invaluable.