Hell yeah!
The good news is that I have a draft already, from something I wrote previously before my South America trip.
The bad news is that I completely want to rework it.
What initially inspired this script was the AMC and Austin Film Festival's pilot script competition. Because I didn't know about it or was aware about it until one week before I discovered it I knew I wasn't going to submit. Yet, I decided to finish a draft by its deadline because I have no pilot scripts or television scripts under my arsenal. I decided to write a spec script.
The story is science fiction. In a nutshell, it's about a post-war US that involves the losers having to chase giant robots they created. I aim to create a narrative that would introduce a world where technology is heavily regulated to the point of being near banned except for the elite--a proletariat dark age (that sounds pretentious but screw it). I feel that science fiction often has a tendency to seek the destructive elements of technology and science and its involvement with society. There's a term, "transhumanism," that expresses the optimism that science can bring a better future. I think now there's more transhumanists in the wake of individual rock star tech pioneers a la Elon Musk and science intellectuals such as Neil deGrasse Tyson.
I aim to explore transhumanism but also themes of loneliness and isolation, the nature of being defeated, and the nature of uncontrolled militarism in democracy.
Essentially the pilot would introduce the major character, a giant robot hunter and former soldier of a war between conflicting US regions after a major military coup. My travels to Chile and understanding its history have led me to mimic how the coup went down in that nation in 1973. The major character is given a new partner to train. I figure that this will give some structure and validity to introducing the universe.
The problem is that the initial draft...is totally not like that. The idea for this came from a one page story I wrote involving two men dragging a robot's head after killing the people who killed the robot first. The story took place in Russia after the Czars took over again. Consequently, I wrote the script like this. It didn't feel right. I think some elements I intend to keep--the idea of the US being a democracy a la Russia with a sort of mafia rule appeals to me.
Yet, I want to make this American. I want to begin something that would introduce a huge narrative. This leads into another problem with the first draft; how intricate things are going to have to be in order to sustain a narrative where everything has a proper motivation. I also want to work on a script that isn't completely linear. With this last script I finished, about a boy's dream and nightmare, I dabbled in nonlinear storytelling, but I think there will be some interesting challenges.
How do I intend to deal with it?
For one, I intend to create some fake newspaper articles. Right now this pilot feels like a monologue taken from a "101 Best Monologues for Young Actors" books. When I was a theatre major we were advised to not choose monologues from those books but to choose monologues from plays we read because we need to fully understand a character and not just read a monologue. I want this script to feel like it is part of something larger. Therefore I want to flesh out the universe. Hence, fake newspaper articles. I want to write articles that detail various characters, various phases of the war, explicated diplomatic relations, etc.
Another thing: journals. Most writers are recommended to keep a personal diary or journal. I don't do that but I do think that while working on a substantial work it is important to keep a journal. Journals keep one self-aware of what one is writing. It is a place to reflect on what one has written or to jot down ideas for a new purpose. So as I write these fake newspaper articles, I intend to use the journals to explore characterization.
And last, a deadline: September 30, 2013. That's not for this draft, but for the whole script in a completed version that can be shopped or shot.
Here we go!
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