Ohhh, You Mean THAT'S What We Did???

On the set of the trailer (a.k.a. my living room) with our fabulous actress, Clare

Yesterday  morning, Travis sent me a rough cut of the trailer.  I can't let you see it — I can't let anyone see it.  That's not because it's bad — it's not — it's just not at all ready.  Travis told me as much by including about a thousand disclaimers before the link to the rough cut.  Still, he thought I should see it in its current state, just so I knew generally what we had.

I'm so glad he did.

The piece he cut together was 100% true to what I'd written in my trailer script… and yet not at all like what I'd imagined the piece to feel like in my head.  My concept was right, all the elements were dead-on, and the footage my team shot was amazing… but I had put the puzzle pieces together incorrectly on paper.

I never would have realized it if I hadn't seen it.

It took me some time to digest what I'd seen, pinpoint what I'd laid out incorrectly, and realize what I wanted instead.  But by the end of the day (and with some much-appreciated sounding board help and advice from my husband), I was able to send Travis a coherent email laying out a new way to arrange the puzzle pieces into something that'll work a million times better.  He agrees, and we're moving on to the next rough cut.

{Travis, by the way, is my hero for working so hard and so brilliantly on this.  The man's a professional with a million other things on his plate.  My gratitude is immeasurable.}

This is something I find a lot.  Sometimes it takes getting a  piece "finished" — a full draft of a novel or a script — before I can even tell what's broken.  I know with Populazzi, each "complete" draft brought realizations for how to make the piece better… things I never could have seen without looking at the piece as a whole.

Do you find this as well with your writing?  Do you find it's easier to see the big issues once you have everything down on paper, or do you map everything out so thoroughly in the beginning that the major beats remain the same?

Recording voiceover on Sunday… more fun to come!