It takes me a couple weeks to work through my Post Traumatic Semester Disorder. I have a hard time relaxing and just doing nothing—I feel the incessant need to be productive, and I keep getting mini-panic attacks where I think I’m forgetting to do something. An episode or two of Buffy is usually enough to get me through the harder moments, but sometimes the only remedy is to find an old seminar paper and revise it.
One thing I’ve discovered that helps is reading online movie and television screenplays. I’ve started reading them at work. Last night I read a pre-production script for Truman. It’s fascinating to see how much of the script makes it into the movie verbatim, and how much is changed. For example, in the original script, Truman shoots down a helicopter with a flare gun. He also escapes the dome and hijacks a tour bus. He also has some “private” moments that I’m glad they didn’t put into the movie.
I also read a post-production version of Big Fish, but I was very disappointed. Post-production scripts are rewritten to take into account all the changes that were made in the movie—so they would be good to read if, say, you haven’t seen the movie yet. Who knows, maybe the next Harry Potter script is online.
If you have a couple hours to spare and want to read something fun, I suggest putting down your novel or magazine and find a screenplay. They’re available at a lot of sites—just google “screenplay” or “movie scripts.” One website I like is www.imsdb.com. It has a good selection of pre- and post-production scripts, including a lot of television shows. I suggest the Seinfeld pre-production scripts. They’re brilliant.
1 comment:
May I recommend the West Wing? I have never read the scripts but since the writing is brilliant, they might just be readable.
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