Help Me Christopher Walken, You're My Only Hope

Teamwork

Thanks to the help of my adorable wife I was able to get caught up and the note cards are now completed. The script is practically written at this point. Well, aside from the writing the script part. I have to say; the second half of this movie is going to be sweet! I mean it. I absolutely want to make this movie. It would be so much fun. Here are a few of the highlights of what’s new.

Star power

When Harlan and Nathan find themselves at the Celebrity Impersonator training compound they meet a Christopher Walken impersonator. Walken joins them for the rest of the journey. At first I just needed an interesting celebrity character. Walken being on the top of my list of actors I want to work with he was the clear choice. Then, once that character was in the script I just couldn’t get rid of him. He might go away later in the process, but right now I’m excited about a Chris Walken impersonator.

Steal from the best

Once they reach Nerdtacular I thought it would be cool to do a huge matrix style battle to get inside. That fight in the lobby. You know the one. It’s all in Harlan’s imagination so why not have it be a reference to an iconic sci-fi battle. The battle culminates in a showdown between Harlan and Nathan. I figure it needs to be a lightsaber fight. In the beat sheet this whole thing was described in two beats. The first was “They arrive at Nerdtacular. Harlan imagines it as a sneak into the death star sort of scenario.” The second was “Nathan tries to talk some sense into Harlan. Harlan thinks Nathan is under the control of the imaginary bad guys.” Those two notes in the beat sheet allowed me to know what has to happen and move on when I laid out the beats. Now I’ve come back and planned that part in more detail.

Hit the road Jack

In the beats, Harlan leaves Nathan behind for the climactic third act. He heads off on his own to find his family. Doing the note cards I felt like Nathan had earned a part in the resolution. Sure, Nathan sort of kidnapped Harlan and enabled him to almost kill himself after being hit by a car, but I think Nathan can support his friend in doing the right thing also. It’s not really a change of character for Nathan either. All along Nathan acts like he’s helping Harlan, in the end he actually will. So now, at the end, Harlan will escape from the hospital (again) to find his family with Nathan and Christopher Walken helping.

Beats to cards

You might be wondering how I got from the notes in the beat sheets to the notes on the cards. (probably not) It’s a pretty simple process. As I worked on the cards I had the beat sheet in front of me. I would look at a note or two on the beat sheet so I knew where I was in the story and what needed to happen. Let’s look at a few beats from act 3 and the process and cards that came from those notes.

Beat sheet says:

• ·      They end up at a school for celebrity impersonators. Is this fantasy or reality?
• ·      If they don’t leave tonight they’ll miss Nerdtacular completely.
• ·      They try to leave just when the FBI surrounds the compound. Fantasy or reality? Is that just a sheriff’s deputy looking for the guys who ditched a car a few miles up the road?
• ·      They have to sneak out in the middle of the night. They steal a van from the carpool.

I grab a note card and start. Interior or exterior? Exterior will be good because I want to show that it’s a compound. Location? Celebrity Impersonator Training Compound. What happens? They arrive at the celebrity impersonator compound and A Chris Walken impersonator gives them a tour. (Because Chris Walken is awesome) There’s dialog that I don’t want to forget: “No Elvis.”

That first note card would look like this:

Ext. Compound – Day

They arrive at the celebrity impersonator compound.

A Chris Walken gives them a tour.

“No Elvis”

What happens next? Well, they can’t just go right to the escape that night. I also thought that waiting until night would take too long. I decided they should have breakfast with the impersonators. That would be a fun scene. What’s the worst that could happen? The police show up and they have to sneak away. They have no car so they have to steal a van. But Chris Walken catches them. Maybe Walken wants to go with them? Yes please!

The next 2 cards looks like this:

Int. Cafeteria – Day

They have breakfast with impersonators. Harlan sees a cop show up. They slip out.

Ext Compound – Day

They steal a van (does walken go with them?) and hit the road.

In 3 cards we went through 4 beats. Time got compressed. Instead of spending almost a full day at the compound we leave within an hour or so (a minute or two of screen time). This should serve to keep the pressure and sense of urgency going for this second half.  It doesn’t always work like this thought. Later, when they arrive at Nerdtacular, there are 3 beats to describe arriving, entering, and leaving Nerdtacular. In the note cards it came to 7 note cards. Remember the beats just tell you what ball park you should be in when you plot out the scenes so this isn’t unusual.

Too much

I want to try to keep these posts to one simple idea rather than going on and on. So the simple idea today is how to use the beat sheet as a reference as you plot out each scene on your note cards.

Next week we’ll probably have the first few pages of script written. I’m excited. What about you?