the end

I finished the first draft of Gaza Sunrise and sent it to my professor at 2:56 am this morning.

(I am still trying to decide if I think the title is cheesy or just right. It does sound a bit like a drink...but I really wanted "Gaza" on the title page, and if you read the script I think it kind of fits.)

I realized after I sent it that I hadn't typed "Fade Out" or "The End" after the last scene...and then I wasn't sure which one to type. I finally settled on "The End," although of course it's only a first draft, so it's really just the beginning.

This isn't the first time I've completed a feature script, but it is the first time I've completed one that I think is any good. Of course, many things will probably change in subsequent drafts, and there are still a few places where I knew scenes were running way too long, but it was pretty cool to scroll through 112 pages and realize that things were generally in the places they were supposed to be and think, hey, this is starting to be a movie.

During our break in TV class last week, one of my classmates, a second-year, was talking about how she was reluctant to send out material she'd written as a first year, because she felt she had gotten so much stronger as a writer during her thesis year. I feel like I've already learned enough in this semester alone to make my brain explode. Who knows what I'll learn next year?

I'm going to write a longer blog post at some point with more details about all the things I learned through writing this script, particularly my thoughts about writing political and true-life stories. (I feel like I have enough opinions on this now to teach a class on it...a class which would probably be fascinating only to me.) Some of these things I learned in feature class, others I learned in Script Analysis, and many I taught myself along the way. (But I guess that's part of grad school too--knowing enough to know what you need to teach yourself.)

But by far the most important thing I learned from this process was to not let anyone talk you out of writing something you want to write. I came very close to giving up on this story at the beginning of the semester, since so many people were telling me it was a bad idea and couldn't be done. But luckily, I have a character flaw by which, as soon as people start telling me I can't do something, I have to prove them wrong. (Not surprisingly, my protagonist also possesses this quality.)

Early in the semester, this idea was used as an example (in TWO classes other than my own) of something not to write. Well, I wrote it. I was the first in my class to finish, and, while it's certainly far from done, I am proud of how it turned out.

I think Moira Shaheed would approve.