Breaking Down

I had a phone call today with the Director of Special Events at Grace College, my alma mater, which owns a hotel I’m hoping to use to shoot my first feature this year.

He wants to meet with me next week to go over my proposed schedule with a view to seeing whether he can accommodate me. He wants to see it in detail, by room, because he frequently rents the space piecemeal, so he needs to know exactly which days I need which rooms.

Thing is … I don’t have a schedule.

See, the whole movie takes place in this location. I figured I would lock the location first, then make the schedule for how I use the location. Silly me; that’s not how things work.

So I have to do a script breakdown this week. For any non-entertainment-biz visitors, this is a document that tells you all the different resources you need to produce a particular script—props, locations, talent, costumes, etc.—and which days you need those things.

I’ve never done one of these. So that’s fun.

They have software to do this for you. And I love software. So I downloaded Celtx, which is a free scriptwriting/pre-production software application. I’ve never used it to write because I was lucky enough to start screenwriting when I could still use a student discount to purchase Final Draft, but Final Draft doesn’t do all the same things.

So here goes. I hope I don’t butcher it horribly.

P.S. I feel like I’ve finally come up with a good title for this script, so I’m going to share it here, and it is: Murder! A Love Story. I hope you like it.