A rare second draft!
The first draft I wrote, the action started where this one ends. I usually need to take a few days away from a draft before I can assess what needs work. But with this, I knew about three pages in that I was starting at what should be a very natural climax. So, rather than go any further, I started draft 2 and worked up to draft 1’s cold open.
Out of all the drafts I’ve shared so far, this is the only draft that makes me laugh. I find this one laugh out loud funny, which is anything but ordinary.
First, it takes so long to figure out what the hell I’m doing in early drafts that I’m usually too frustrated and tired to laugh at what I’ve come up with.
Second, it’s important to me that these read like straight-up thrillers. The funniest shit in the first five, to me, wasn’t in the script. It was the minutiae of the actors’ body language, the timing of cuts suggested by Spencer, sound cues. If any of these ever get made, I’m casting funny people who will be encouraged to improvise and try different to add the comedy to the world I’ve put them in.
That said, this one makes me laugh so hard because of our protagonist’s refusal to admit anything’s wrong.
What I want to know before moving on to draft 3:
Is it actually funny or am I simply delirious?
In my mind, the video is in fact a fake. Would it be better to make that clearer?
The video itself, once revealed…I mean it can be anything but do we like that it’s a food-play fetish video?
Shoutout to I Think You Should Leave, Silence of the Lambs, and Cache.
Dream Casting
Lee: Tim Robinson, Conner O’Malley, Whitmer Thomas, Sandy Honig
Terry: Julie Klausner, Ayo Edebiri
Avery: Rajat Suresh, Jeremy Levick, Hayes Davenport,
Head caterer: Jane Lynch,