Assembly scriptwriting comes to a close

Friday I went into Celtx and read the final versions of scripts that people have submitted. It’s interesting to see the range of tools people put to use depending on their style of writing.

Assembly1: “Lose me in translation; find me in the double helix” is written as a series of voiceovers in between which the author conscientiously left space for music, knowing that the musicians will want some creative room to play around in. As written in the opening notes of the script, “the whole thing is meant to be an approximation of a moment of catharsis experienced at a rock show/club/bar.”

Assembly2: “The Gift Inside” used the line from the rock opera, “The boys in blue shook their booties too” to create the characters, Boy in Blue 1 and 2. This writer used the text tab in Celtx to create a point form breakdown of ideas and the character description function to outline the main character, Birthday Boy, including his motivations and goals.

Assembly3: “The Rougher the Better” takes a line from the rock opera about how lead character George Trike got his start to superstardom in a traffic jam and opens with two female leads trapped in traffic caused by a biker gang. This script uses dialogue that the writer collected from television shows over the past few months.

Assembly4: “A Night At The Mecca” revolves around the characters Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, Zarathustra H. Christ, George Bush, and a cat named Kitler. This author used character description tags for all the characters as well as describing props in detail. He also included images and youtube videos for reference throughout the script.

Assembly5: “Out to Sea” takes place on a cruiseship. I look forward to seeing the filmmaker’s interpretation of this setting. This script leaves lots of room for a filmmaker’s own vision of the characters and action while subtly expressing the writers’ own images through the dialogue and shot descriptions.

Assembly6: takes place over 4 months, starting in March and telling the story leading up from January. The writer included incredibly detailed shot descriptions and parenthetical character notes. It includes the character, George, from the rock opera and follows a storytelling pattern of going back to arrive at the present that was suggested in the opera piece.

Assembly7: “We Assemble” is written in a mix of verse and quick dialogue exchanges. It incorporates quotes from other written and musical works and has a poetic temporal quality. It uses the opening dialogue of the opera in its entirety.

Let’s see what the filmmakers do with each of these!