Once upon a time two girls began writing—well, they are females, not young, except in heart, one considerably older than the other, and once upon a time was four weeks ago today—Wednesday.
The girls were Daughter Darling and me, and we decided to write a treatment for an Indiana Jones screenplay.
A treatment is a narrative description following the plotline and characters of a screenplay. It is used as a sales tool, and should be written in present tense, have little dialogue, and be 5 to 20 pages in length.
A week ought to do it.
That was four weeks ago.
We knew time was critical. The producers were working on an Indiana Jones script, but were not happy with it. Move fast we thought. Harrison Ford said he was not getting any younger. Neither were we.
Except how in the world do you write a treatment? And how do you write a screenplay for that matter. There is structure to follow, Act 1, Act 2, Act 3. Act 1 is ¼ of the film, Act 2 is ½, and Act 3 is ¼. Set-up, action, resolution, that’s it. Pretty much all films comply with that structure. Oh yes, something pertinent ought to happen at the midpoint. (In Titanic, the ship hit the iceberg at midpoint.) Some turning point ought to occur at the end of Act 1 and again and the end of Act 2. Whew!
Wednesday came and went.
We had a ball doing this exercise. Laughed at ourselves at least 100 times a day. We had an idea, and said, “We ought to write a treatment.” And so we did. During the process we decided that collaborating on a screenplay is the best way to go—you have someone to bounce ideas off of. You can laugh at what you have done and what you are doing.
Then the real work began. We had to get ourselves out of the corners we had painted ourselves into.
We would work on the patio, where I got stung by a bee twice, or we would write at McDonald’s, or at Rosa’s Mexican restaurant where we could sit in a corner booth and eat burritos and chips and salsa. Baby Darling would play with other children at McDonald’s play yard, or sit on Daughter’ Darling’s lap and I would type. It took me awhile to get it that I could edit on the computer instead of longhand then transcribe onto the computer later on. That would be either between the hours of 12 and 3 am, or in the mornings before the rest of the family got up. Of course we were, all the while, working around the needs and desires of a two year old. He will have to sign a non-disclosure agreement so he doesn’t give away the plotline. He has heard the theme song to Indiana Jones so many times he can sing it.
After three weeks the fun wore thin—we had to change hats from brainstorming to getting the job done.
I heard that in Hollywood, one ought never to write in public because someone will come up and ask if you are working on a screenplay, and then tell you about theirs.
Last night we watched the documentary My Date with Drew and I felt inspired to tell you what we were up to. After all I can trust you people not to laugh, right?!
My Date with Drew is fun and will make you believe that dreams can come true. A young man living in Hollywood won $1,100 in a game show. The answer to the last question that won him the $1,100 was “Drew Barrymore.” He had had a crush on Drew since he was 7 years old, even joined her fan club. He decided that in 6 degrees of separation he ought to find someone who knew someone who knew Drew Barrymore. He set out to get a date.
He went to Circuit City and “bought” a camera on a 30 day return policy, for he had no money and had to use his friend’s credit card since his was rejected. He had 30 days to film and a budget of $1,100 to buy film, rent a limousine, clothing, a facial (that was free), body work-out (free again) and get a date with Drew. Bottom line, he got the date. It took 82 days. (And a trip to a different Circuit City.)
Yesterday I found that the producers for the Indiana Jones #5 script scratched it.
“Dum- te-dum-dum!” [Music]
