At 10/26/17 07:11 PM, ADR3-N wrote:At 10/26/17 06:40 PM, rebekahamberclark wrote: OK, since I'm not a writing person, I wanted to check in and ask, is everything solidified enough to do casting?Imo, personalities are pretty well set. Lines are not totally finalized, but it looks like to me everything is fairly solid in terms of what characters we have. What do you think, @SourJovis, @Ekublai? Enough here to start thinking about actors, or should we wait and see what gets trimmed out or tacked on?
I think the characters that are in the script right now are the characters that will be in the final version. Though if the script becomes better by cutting out certain scenes with characters that don't appear in the rest of the script, we shouldn't hesitate to do that. In any case, if we cut out any characters from the script it won't be many characters and only minor characters. I'd say safe to start casting. Or at least read read the second draft so you can start preparing. if people audition for a character that gets cut, you can maybe tell from the quality of their audition if they're suited for different roles.
At 10/26/17 12:44 PM, EKublai wrote: I haven't made it through the 2nd of the script yet but for all those rewriting those parts: please, please make sure the writing does not rely on visual cues. On page 29, for instance, we have "Darnell sinks to the ground, legs dangling over the curb helplessly. AZ8 sighs, looking back out into the crowd, and then eventually points rhetorically at the skyscraper across
the street"
Always ask the question, "how is sound and dialogue supposed to accomplish this?"
I'll sloppily rewrite that last example as: Darnell sinks to the ground and groans. Darnell: I give up. ArchetypeZ8: Come on, Darnell, that sidewalk is filthy. *she sighs as the crowd continues to mumur* ArchetypeZ8: There's got to be some way... but there isn't... wait, yes there is! Look!"
Well-written? Not really. But it something the sound people can work with.
Even little stuff like "Darnell nods in agreement" cannot be heard. It's silence.
That's a good point. I've noticed that as well. Whenever you (re-)write an action ask yourself "how does audio tell you what happens?" and then answer that question by how your action is written. Indeed make sure your action doesn't rely on visual cues, because there aren't any.
Doesn't matter to me if the actions aren't well written. It's nice for the readers of the script, but in the end the audience doesn't get to hear them read out. They only hear the SFX and music the audio department makes out of it. So somithing they can work with is indeed what we're going for.
On that note I've also noticed the following issue:
I see a lot of sentences like “The sound of a bomb going of is heard”.
First of all, we agreed the actions are for what sounds are required, so you don't need to write that you "hear" a sound. Secondly, that's not simple present tense. A better sentence would simply be: “A bomb goes of”.
A few more general points I'd like to make:
-Keep the actions in present tense.
-Mind your spelling. For instance: I (as in me) is with capital I not i. etc.
-Write dialogue that's clear what it means and are easy for the voice actors to say. Concise. To the point. No large blocks of texts. Tip: read the dialogue out loud yourself to see how difficult it is to say (and that's often more difficult than you'd think). Re-write until you can actually read it out loud properly.
