Adventures in Screenwriting: Rewrites, Rewrites, Rewrites...

Map of Cuba. (Credit: Wikipedia)

“Film’s thought of as a director’s medium because the director creates the end product that appears on the screen. It’s that stupid auteur theory again, that the director is the author of the film. But what does the director shoot—the telephone book? Writers became much more important when sound came in, but they’ve had to put up a valiant fight to get the credit they deserve.” – Billy Wilder

This week has been a busy one for me; since Monday, my focus has been on making revisions to my second original screenplay of 2019, a comedy-drama titled Happy Days Are Here Again.

Happy Days Are Here Again is a project that I started working on almost as soon as my filmmaking partners Juan Carlos Hernandez and Adria K. Woomer-Hernandez finished post-production on my first produced short, A Simple Ad. As with that project, Happy Days Are Here Again (no relation to the 1970s-era sitcom) began as a request for a comedy script; however, A Simple Ad ended up being a short but serious movie about grief and loss, so I owed Juan and Adria a funnier, yet original story.

As with A Simple Ad, Juan did not put any creative restrictions on the script. That is, he did not email me a treatment or a screen story that he wanted me to turn into a screenplay. He just said, "We need a comedy, but this one can be about 30 minutes long. And I'd like to shoot it in the summer while my son A.J. is in town during his summer break from college."

I got my marching orders in late May, and even though it took me a while to come up with a concept, I eventually decided to go with a concept that evokes the classic sitcom All in the Family, i.e., it's a comedy mixed with commentary about the times we live in. 

As luck would have it, I had a title in mind for the new script even before I wrote the first draft of a script written for three characters. For some reason (don't ask me what it was), I had the song "Happy Days Are Here Again" in my mind when I was thinking about what the script would be about. Every time that I wondered "What the heck am I going to write for Juan this time?", I'd hear "Happy Days Are Here Again" in my head. It didn't matter where I was at the time - at my desk, in the shower, or eating a bowl of cereal in the kitchenette - but that old song from the 1930s played in my head. 

If you are a writer, you know this truth to be self-evident: if you get an idea that your mind just can't let go of, run with it.

In April, that idea I couldn't shake off was "For Sale: Baby Shoes. Never Used."

Two months later, it was: "Happy Days Are Here Again."

So, like a good writer, that's what I did. I ran with it.

Once I had my concept down, it only took me three days to write the first draft of the script. I knew that I had a limited cast of three (a step up from two as in A Simple Ad), so I didn't have to worry about secondary characters. It's kind of limiting, in a way, when you know that your director and producer don't have a budget to hire a larger cast or even a film crew, but art thrives on limits, does it not?

“Everything starts with writing. And then to support your vision, your ideas, your philosophy, your jokes, whatever, you’ve gotta perform them and/or direct them, or sometimes just produce them.” – Mel Brooks

As soon as I finished the script, I sent it as an attachment in an email to Juan in mid-June. We were trying to get it made by mid-July, so time was of the essence.

Juan liked the script and the idea of using "Happy Days Are Here Again" as our theme song. (It seemed like a nice counterbalance to "Suo Gan," which we had used in A Simple Ad.)

Now, even though the first draft caught Juan's attention, he felt that I was trying to play it safe and didn't have enough dramatic conflict in a story about a family in contemporary America. "If you want to evoke All in the Family, you need to heighten the tensions between the characters with different opinions."

After reading Juan's initial reaction, I re-read my script. It was, I thought, funny and balanced, but it did lack dramatic tension. So, I booted up my Movie Magic Screenwriter program, opened the "Happy Days Are Here Again" file, and started what turned out to be the first of many rewrites.

Screenshot of a page from the Happy Days Are Here Again script. 

Due to scheduling issues and a change of plans that resulted in another project being shot in July, we have had to postpone filming of Happy Days Are Here Again till A.J.'s next break from college.

Of course, this required another round of rewrites, some of which were necessary; the first draft was for a film to be shot in New York City during the summer, so now the revised draft has to be adjusted for late autumn.

So, I've made those tweaks, and Juan requested others.

"We need more jokes," he said. So I gave him a few more jokes.

"We need more tension between Guillermo and Jerry," he said. So I gave him more tension between Guillermo and Jerry.

I assume that Juan is happy with the last batch of revisions; I have not heard from my NYC-based friend since Tuesday night and I sent him the latest draft of the script before noon yesterday.

“It’s possible for me to make a bad movie out of a good script, but I can’t make a good movie from a bad script.” – George Clooney

Will there be more revisions before Juan, Adria, and A.J. break the script and start filming? I don't know. I did say to Juan (in notes on the script) that if he wants to ad lib some extra jokes, he can. I'm hoping that there won't be any more required changes, but we'll see.

Stay tuned!