The advice I most often follow when taking on a new project is to step away from my computer. Everything I do starts with a script, even if I have to write it, so the first step is to get away from my computer and read.
If there's a script ready, I'll sit on the couch and read it. Or maybe I'll sit out on our deck and read it. If I have the time and the weather's cooperating, I'll grab a bench by the lake and read it.
I'll read the script and jot down whatever jumps out at me first. Ideas. Questions. Connections. With the intention of understanding the script. What's it trying to do? And how does it need to stick the landing?
If there's not a script, then I need a look at anything that indicates what the script should be about and, by extension, what the show should be about.
Proposals are a good clue, a wonderful starting point. Previous scripts are good, too. As well as previous shows but especially the last show. The idea is to avoid the blank page as much as possible. Avoid the circumstance in which everything is on the table.
Because that's completely unhelpful.
So I'm looking for specifics that clear away possibilities and focus on a subject, a point, the specific reason for this script, this show to be.
The show's raison d'être, if you will.
Because if I don’t internalize that, what comes out of my mind, what comes out of my fingertips, won’t be good. And even if it is good... it’ll miss the point.
So yeah. My first stop’s a quiet place that’s for reading. And only reading. A place where my mind can absorb the written word, internalize it, then play with it on its own when I’m not looking.
Or even conscious.
It’s my current process...
And I’m lovin it.
😁
