1917

my movie script

As you may know…

I started putting my movie script up for no reason, other than to give my PAID Subscribers something to read, just for themselves. Besides, I think my brother wanted to read this a long time ago. I may have sent him one of the many iterations a couple of years back, but this is not the same movie.

I started writing this at work. I did it because I had no idea of how to write a script, and I liked the idea of challenging myself. I had a note book, parked my machine between a row of packages, lit up a smoke, and told myself I was going to write something about the Russian Revolution, because it gave me a couple of years to finish it. I think it had to be around 2014.

And look! I’m still working on it. That’s because when you write a movie you have to think differently. You have to think visually. When you write a story, you bring that ‘visuality’ to the page. You use flowery language to show the sunset. On film, you say EXT—SUNSET—DAY. That’s it. So when I started writing it, I was flowery. I was giving directions: put the camera here, put it there; cut to this scene, cut to that. That’s for the DIRECTOR to decide. Don’t give the actors any orders, either; let them decide how they think the character should react. I don’t know how to act, so why would I give stage directions? It’s not a play.

So I wrote pages and pages of dialogue, and worked backwards from there. The first thing I thought when I started writing was…what if? What if someone was caught up in the Revolution, but didn’t really understand what was going on? How would he get out? And the story started to grow from there.

I’ll put this up a dozen or so pages at a time. It’s going up behind the paywall, so if you want to read it, pay the admission…just like going to the movies! But a lot cheaper at only $5/month.