Script Feedback/Development

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After my script feedback session with Steve Coombes, I had quite a few adjustments to make to my script. He said that in a lot of my action, I was describing backstory as well as how Natalie is feeling which is too story like. For a script, the action should only describe what the camera can see so that when you're filming, the camera operators know what to film and how to do it. The characters and dialogue should help to convey what the story is about but the action should show it. When amending my script, I started a new draft and had the first draft open as a separate tab to work from. I noticed I used quite a lot of backstory about the character of Natalie in the first few bits of action. Therefore, I cut this out and focussed on telling the reader a bit more about what she looked like rather than the events of her past. Steve also suggested that I shorten the first section of the script where she is making her way to the train. I wanted the script to start
off with a short montage of her being late and rushing, just making the train in time. However, I used too many unnecessary scenes and dialogue in this first section which I have adapted and shortened. I wanted to keep in some of the opening dialogue including her neighbour wishing her a good weekend as this gives a hint that she's going away somewhere. He also suggested that I make the meeting itself into several short scenes as opposed to one long scene, making small changes to the way the conversation is set up. For example in my first draft for the main section where she describes what happens in her story, I said that this would be a montage. However, Steve suggested that I cut to a scene showing the montage itself so that when she is describing a location, it appears on the screen, therefore changing the setting and allowing the audience to really imagine her novel so that they believe in this world Natalie has created through her novel. I also changed the way that she loses her novel, as during my feedback, it was pointed out that even though the laptop had broken, it is very likely that she would be able to retrieve the data by taking it to a technician, therefore there would be no need for her to repeat it and write it down. To change this, I have altered it so that there is something unusual in the way that she works, in that she carries notepads wherever she goes and makes notes, observing her environment for ideas and therefore only has a hard copy of her novel on paper. For the way she loses it, the loose papers are sitting on a table in the train and due to a strong gust of wind are swept out of the train door and lost under the tracks. I think this is a much more final way of losing the novel because there is no way she can retrieve them, therefore she has to re-write it in that moment of time before she forgets it. I have also changed my ending slightly. I still wanted to leave it on a cliffhanger where John publishes the novel. However, previously he doesn't tell her that he is a publisher and leaves her thinking about he prospect of taking it to be published herself. However, I decided to alter this so that he is enthusiastic and excited about her novel, tells her that he would like to publish it for her, but instead publishes it under his own name, therefore taking the credit for it. I think this is a better ending as the audience will think that something good will finally happen for Natalie now she has been discovered but are left just as bewildered as her to find out that he deceives her.