MEETING IN PERSON

August 2009
We agree to meet at Arif’s house rather than Pinewood because it will save a trawl across London to Buckinghamshire. I am the only Irish person in the history of the world who ever turns up for anything on time, so I loiter on the corner lowering the tone of the neighbourhood and probably real estate prices as well. It’s good to meet Arif in person – in the great move if life, he would be played by Art Malik I think. Jess (Jessica has long ago become Jess) has not arrived, so we have a coffee and a wander around the garden. Apropos of nothing at all – am delighted to see that Arif’s garden has a “Winnie the Pooh’s thinking spot” something I would love to have in my own garden. Jess arrives. She would be played by Naomi Watts circa Mulholland Drive, I think.
We have the original draft of the script and the rewrites version. We go through the reworked version of the script, occasionally referring back to the first one.
There is a lot of spitballing back and forth. Both Jess and Arif have a great habit of not saying “I hate that, it has to go” but rather asking you what you think it’s purpose is, and forcing you to defend the choices you have made? What does this character get us? What does this scene get us? Let’s just take it as read that we were working on the heroes motivation (I had made him a Byronic hero – but perhaps he might be too Byronic – I should be making his character if not faster, certainly better and stronger) The heroine everyone seems okay with. Structure – act one still needs work. I write about five pages of notes, and then head back to the altar of the flashing cursor.