Writers tend to roll their eyes wearily when people ask, “Where do you get your ideas from?” I mean, I get it, it’s the most cliched question you can ask anyone who puts pen to paper / finger to keyboard. Personally, I think the writer’s weary response is because either a) the answer would be mundane and demystifying; b) more often than not, it’s a just a jumble of things bumbling around together in the brain that just sort of collide into something that makes you go, "hmmm" or even "oh"; or c) sometimes you don’t really know. In this case, it’s a little of a) and a little of b).
At the time that we were sitting down and staring at a blank piece of paper until our foreheads bled (the Douglas Adams method of writing), I had recently been a guest at the wedding of a friend. No unusual in itself, I know, but you know how at weddings there’s usually one person who’s the drunkest person there? Well, at this wedding, around eight people were the drunkest people there (myself naturally included). In the weeks that followed, a group of us that were there spent quite a bit of time (in the pub, naturally) piecing together what had happened throughout that day and evening. The constantly surprising thing was that, once we thought we’d got it all worked out, someone would suddenly drop another little bombshell into the mix that the rest of us didn't know about / had carefully erased through the application of alcohol.
Rich and I liked this as a concept:- following a group of characters piecing together a night out which would also give us a choppy non-linear structure to play around with. At that time, I’d also had a ten year reunion with some university friends*. We both felt that, rather than a wedding, a reunion would be a good hook. It meant that we could also show the reality of their lives since they last met contrasted with the way they were presenting themselves to each other. It also meant we could keep the cast relatively small (hey, when you're funding a film yourself, logistics becomes part of the creative process!).
So we had our concept. The two of us then spent a good amount of time fleshing out our core group of characters, going through their backgrounds both at and since university as well as mapping out the key events that would take place on the fateful night. Having detailed all of that, I went away and pulled together the first draft which was then sent to Rich for redrafting. We went back and forth like that (as well as doing a few read throughs with some other core members of the film-making team - my little brother and good friend Liz) until we were both satisfied we had something we could work with (as good as you’ll get with any script, that is - there’s always more revising that can be done).
Script finished, we canvassed some friends for options for the title of the film - after all, there’s only so long you can keep calling something Untitled Reunion Script. Some initial names included “Who Needs Enemies?” and “Present Tense” but, after some voting and feedback, “Incidental Weekend” emerged as the clear winner.
We had a script. We had a title. All we needed now were cast, crew, equipment and locations….
To Be Continued
* Makes it sound like we hadn’t seen each since university - we had, for the most part, seen each other loads over the years but it was a good excuse for a big booze up. And who doesn’t love a good excuse for a big booze up? Exactly.
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