The pressure in on and the nerves are kicking in! Even though we’ve felt it since day 1, the finish line is so much closer. Yesterday was the hardest day for me, creatively. There were ideas in my head, but for some reason I couldn’t put on paper. It was a combination of tiredness and the pressure Aaron and I were putting on ourselves.
Today, we made our way to the warehouse from noon to 3 pm. There was no wasting time. We went straight to accomplishing our tasks. Aaron and I revisited the script from the night before and added some more scenes to strengthen our story and characters. Thanks to Steve’s advice, we could create more relatability with our characters and give them all purpose. Until about 6 pm we were scripting out our scenes. Although there were still weak parts of the script, we wanted to pitch it to Steve to make sure we were going the right direction. We were happy to not hear any drastic flaws with our script, but it was nowhere close to being ready.
Aaron and I decided to split up to accomplish more. I took the notes that Steve gave us and revised the script. Now, it was about piecing everything together. Most of the songs and raps were ready. Celeste did a very good job of infecting my brain with the songs she wrote, which is a good sign. The goal was to get the script done and printed by 9:30 and for the first time we came close to hitting that goal! Unfortunately, we put too much faith into Kinkos for printing our script and that delayed our process.
Steve helped us out greatly by sitting in as a director and as an audience. We went through all the scenes with blocking, while editing the script. By doing this, we all had a better understanding of the story and were rapidly filling in the plot holes we had before. We spent a couple hours doing this and by 5 am we weren’t even halfway done, but Steve decided we’d call it a night, since we had another long day ahead.
In the creative world, feedback is probably the most crucial thing to becoming better and the worst thing to do is take it personally or not seek that advice. While we went through the script with Steve, I learned a lot. He mentioned a lot of things that I’ve heard before and new things that I’d never thought about. Although almost every line of the dialogue written was adjusted, I wasn’t discouraged by it because the intentions of the scene remained. By the end of the session, we had the same story, but with a different approach that I liked a lot more.
This is the last blog I am writing for YAP and it’s very nostalgic. The thought of all of this being over in a few days leaves me with a multitude of emotions. It has been a roller coaster getting to the story we have now, but it’s been worth it. I can’t wait for the audience to experience our story and for the YAP cast to see our hard work come to life. For two weeks, we’ve made this warehouse our home, our office, and our playground. It is going to feel so weird to go back to our normal lives and to have a normal sleep schedule. I forgot how life was when I didn’t see Aaron, Celeste, and Katie every day. We’ve learned so much as a group and I know our inside jokes will live on as well as our friendship outside of the warehouse. Things probably won’t kick in until we take our final bow, so I will brace myself for that. I’m beyond grateful for the experience I’ve had at the Young Artist Project.
Written By: Chalisa Phiboolsook
