Status Report for AHS Capstone

This entry was originally published at Toastmaster K - The Blog!

AHS Capstone
Kevin Tostado
9/29 Status Report

Since the start of this project, we have redirected the focus of this project to be the screenplay instead of the general process involved with producing the movie (screenplay and first few test shots). As such, we have redefined our plan of work to reflect this change. We also selected Gillian Epstein as our mentor for this project; we will still need to find an external reader later in the semester to evaluate our final screenplay and annotation.

In our original plan of work, right now we’d be finishing up our screenplay soon so that we could begin filming soon. However, we decided that in the best interest of the movie, we would spend more time developing the story and screenplay and shifted the setting of the movie to take place at the beginning of the spring semester instead of the fall semester. This setting shift allows us more time to prep since we want it to actually be winter outside for our shots. We feel that the following plan of work is very doable by the end of the semester and will help us stay on track to finish our movie.

Plan of Work
September 1 – First Draft of Screenplay finished, submitted to Gillian Epstein
September 8 – Feedback from Gillian
September 14 – New proposal submitted to first mentor (Rob)
September 16 – Second draft of screenplay finished
September 22 – Gillian selected as mentor
September 27 – Casting completed for film
September 28 – Final proposal feedback on solicited from Gillian,
September 29 – Status Report 1
October 1 – Full-cast read-through
October 3 – Actor feedback on script begins
October 20 – Outline for Annotation and Third full revision of script
October 27 – Get feedback on third draft
November 3 – Status Report 2
November 5 – Final (fourth) Revision of Screenplay Turned In (so we can start filming)
November 12 – Final feedback from anyone we show the script to
November 17 – Annotations Turned In

We have continued writing on the screenplay to improve it since the last section meeting. We met with Gillian Epstein for a hour and a half to get feedback on the feel of the characters, flow of the story, consistency, etc. In general, this meeting was very helpful and provided us with the outside perspective that we’ve been missing for a while on this project.

Additionally, Tom and I have involved Brendan Doms and Sean McBride as Assistant Directors on the movie. As such, we had them read the script as well and give us feedback, which we’ve then integrated into the script. They also sat in with us on the auditions that we held on September 17th and 25th. Over the course of the two auditions, we auditioned more than 35 people for roles in the movie. Because of varying acting experiences and backgrounds, we saw many different readings of the characters. This has in effect really helped us define the roles better in our minds and will help us with continuing rewrites of the script.

Since the auditions, we’ve cast our main roles for the movie and will be having our first full read-through with the cast this Saturday (October 1st). After the read-through, we will meet with the cast again to get feedback on how they see their characters, and discuss how the script coincides with their vision. Tom and I think that this method of script revision does not usually happen in Hollywood, but as we do more research, we may find that this happens more than we thought.

From the feedback we get from the read-through, we will produce the next draft of the script, which we will again submit to Gillian (as well as Rob and Lynn) for feedback to get our screenplay to a final state.

We are extremely excited about the fact that right now we have a cast for our movie and that as we start this next phase of the script revision, we are going to work with the cast to make the characters feel even more realistic. Also, we’ve given the script a little bit of time and space so that when we come back to it next, we’ll have more of an “outside” perspective on it and be more critical on how we can continually improve it.

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