Tuesday 16 September 2008

The hunt for the missing script

Following on from my recent Blog about a feature film called PLAYBACK that I wrote with my Experiment writing partner John Harrison, I vowed to unearth this old script and dust it off for a rewrite.
You may recall that this script had attachments like Simon Callow & Frances Barber, and inspired the short film FOREPLAY, which you can download from this very page.

So. After blogging about PLAYBACK, I set about tracking it down. Not an easy task. it was written in 1996-7 and was saved to a floppy disk (remember them?).
After a complete search of the office and my house I was gutted to find that said script was nowhere to be found. No disk. No hardcopy.
I telephoned my co-writer, John, and he embarked on his own search.
It did not escape our amusement that the film's plot was all about the search for a missing item.
Three days later and I get a call from John. he's found the script in it's Draft 8 from. Hoorah!

He started reading bits to me, and it was proper weird.
I had no recollection of characters, events or plot twists. Bizarre.

But, I do know its something that we have to re-write and develop again.
With over ten years between me and Johnny writing this I'd like to think I've learned one or two things about film making and PLAYBACK will benefit as a result.

Johnny reminded me of when he and I took the script round to actors agents in London, because we could not afford the postage.
Picture Johnny and I, walking round central London in the baking heat of summer, sweating but determined. Each laden with about 12 scripts in Tesco carrier bags.
What did those agencies think?
Happy times...

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