Starting Week 2

All righty!

I have finished 40-44!!  Yayy!

Scene 40 is supposed to be flashes into the down-and-out guy's mind, and in truth it's not exactly "done," but I've got some thematic filler in there.  All three montages will just have to wait until January, I think.

Counting that filler as something though, I am now "one day" or 1.75 pages ahead of schedule.  This is a good thing, because tomorrow I start Scene A45 - "Frazzled" - the scene where Marissa is crying in the dark and Bill counsels her.  It's six pages long and will take me probably four days (possibly three if it goes well).   This scene was really tough -- and it's one of the hardest scenes for me to watch/engage with because I should have been a better director for it.  I mean, I should have been a better director ALL ROUND, but this scene is so vital to the film that I can get furious watching certain things fall through the cracks, etc.  I will try to stay calm, though, because I am on a mission!

I managed to stay relatively calm for both the "you're f*king nothing" scene and the "I'm a people person" scene, both of which featured professional actors outside our central cast of five regulars.  It is clear to me watching these scenes - which came out well enough in the end - that I was a little intimidated by their experience or something -- I did not give them enough input. :(  Still, it is neat to have the fresh faces and energies in the movie.

PLUS - our own Jack Martin has two lines in Scene 44 (in the park on Comm Ave).  He plays "Somebody."

SOMEBODY:  Excuse me--
LARRY:  It's 12:45.
SOMEBODY:  Thanks. 

So, Jack, you're Somebody now! 

I'll probably write mid-Frazzled once, and then when I have finished that scene!  Man, I'll tell you, that will feel like quite an accomplishment!  After that, it will be the "Second Dinner" sequence, which includes reading Marissa's prose (I have no idea how to handle that) and Larry & Marissa's "showdown" on the street.  THEN it will be the suicide sequence; THEN Bill comes out; THEN Amy sings.  Then the ENDING.  No flies on these scenes! 

So -- until mid-frazzle....