Jackson Goldberg - Day 21

With the first draft of the script nearly done (it should be completed by tomorrow, and I'm going to continue working on it after the project wraps up), we made time for a table read today. The truth is, dialogue that sounds great in your head can sound completely ridiculous when spoken. I know in my case, I like to put in a lot of verbal imperfections i.e. repeated words, pauses, "um"s, "you knows" in my dialogue to make it sound more natural, but sometimes that goes overboard and ends up sounding really artificial. So there is definitely a lot of value in these sort of read throughs and hearing the stuff you write spoken out loud. Also important is getting to see and hear genuine reactions from others regarding your script. If someone laughs while delivering a line you thought was particularly funny, obviously that's an encouraging sign. Today I was particularly pleased by the reactions to the central dynamic between the three main characters. I think of it as kind of a riff on the three men from Jaws: the grizzled expert, the overly zealous adventurer, and the straight man who gets reluctantly pulled along. Everyone seemed to enjoy the banter between these characters, which was great to see.