saw Want by Zayd Dohrn. Thought it was really good and thought about our class:
1. Because people are upset, anxious, angry, lustful in screenplays no one should be sleeping.
2. And if people are sleeping in your screenplay then I'm sleeping.
Note that the central image in the play was the couch. Marley "slept" on it but mostly she couldn't sleep, had sex, did drugs, etc. And when she was sleeping someone else was wandering around the house. Again everyone was anxious/activated in someway.
Thought about the cuts in the action - at a turning point, a piece of new info/new conflict. In other words, don't finish a scene and go onto some other scene. Finish a scene with something unfinished - a question, a conflict, etc.
Saw Blue Valentine - sad, but really liked it. Deb and I were talking about the various symbols and metaphors in it:
they stay in the future room at a motel, but really it's about the past and when he wakes up she's gone. IE They have no future.
The daughter and father try to make a house for the dog, but the dog won't go in/there's something missing.
and the mother leaves the gate open, allowing the dog to escape. Either she's not ready to make a home (or this home)/she wants to leave and/or again something broken about this home.
Deb and I spent a long time talking about exactly was the nature of the problem. Which is good - simple situation, bought the characters, but at the same time complex/doesn't fit into a box. And who do you like? And how does that change?
(And the sex scenes - told us something about the characters. Not just watching sex.)
And the conflict definitely gets worse as the story goes on.
DT