Script Development

1.4 — How I spent develop on the script for Rhapsody

I have notes for a story about a composer scoring an arthouse video game when their sister comes to crash dating back to early 2022. I’d been trying to write a script set in Riverside since summer 2021. May 2022 is when it clicked that these might be parts of the same story.

Before we began principal photography in March 2024, there were 14 versions of the script for Rhapsody, my first feature film. Due to the nature of no-budget production (shit happens), script changes were also made throughout shooting.

The nearly two years of script development were on and off, with much of the work being done in the last six months or so leading up to production. During that time I was continuing to work on other projects and my degree.

This is a recount of the development process and milestones the project underwent during that time.

In August of 2022, I took a night train from Los Angeles Union Station to Tucson to help my sister move to Missouri. The train ride was about seven or eight hours.

I wrote longhand for much of the time or sat in the observation car of the train watching the sun rise over the Arizona desert thinking deeply about the story I wanted to tell. The character of Devon became much clearer to me on this train ride, and I drafted a few scenes that made it into the film (albeit in different forms). In the months following, I wrote character notes and scenes longhand. I hadn’t typed anything yet.

In April of 2023, I applied for a fellowship to try and get some funds together to make the film. Shortly after, in May, I got word I was going to receive the fellowship in the fall. It was not a lot of money, but it was some money, and in combination with institutional approval of the project, it gave me confidence to lean into writing the script in earnest. It was looking as if this wild plan I had might actually come to fruition.

Although I was commuting to Riverside for classes, most of my time was spent on campus. I knew I needed to start spending more time in the areas I’d lived and hung out as a teenager–Arlanza, downtown, Van Buren–because I wanted to mine my past for inspiration. This time exploring the city would also serve as location scouting.

So, in May of 2023, I decided I wanted to spend time in Riverside to knock out a for-real first draft of the script. It worked out that I could dog-sit for a friend while she was away, so I wrote the first full draft of Rhapsody in about three days in a house across the street from the cemetery we’d be shooting in a year later.

The first draft was relatively painless, as far as writing goes. The months after that were very difficult. I had great trouble wrestling the story I wanted to tell into the scope of what I would be able to produce.

It also didn’t help that it was unclear what the actual budget for the film would be. I decided to write it as “cheaply” as I could and plan on having nothing, just in case. I really felt that if I had to make it alone, just me and some actors with an iPhone, I would still make the film. Once I was set on it, there was no going back. I can only remember one moment when I had doubts strong enough to question if I would make it, and that was based around casting.

Writing is labor. I struggled with the script for months. I felt that I wanted to write something less plot-driven. I felt bothered by “the tyranny of narrative” and other theoretical questions about what a script even is and what it should/can do and why we write them the way we write them. But, I got a lot of advice from professors and friends to make it with a conventional plot–to prove I could tell a story that way–then do whatever I wanted later.

During this time, I read a lot of poetry: Ada Limon, Mary Oliver, Tracy K. Smith, Wallace Stephens, etc. I also watched movies from filmmakers whose work had a strong connection to setting: Noah Baumbach, Berry Jenkins, Andrea Arnold, Kelly Reichardt, etc.

Eventually, I did give in to a more traditional narrative. In the first draft, there was less of a full dramatic arc. Events were seemingly happenstance and the structure for the story came from time. I had specific dates chosen for the story that we would actually shoot on. For example, the film opened on February 9th. I wanted to shoot that part of the script on February 9th and so on through the story. I think there were 12 days. But, that was a harder sell. Eventually, I shaped the script into something plot-driven.

I was OK doing this because it was looking like the film would be shot for no money (just the fellowship money and whatever I could pitch in), and I thought the recipe for the highest quality film I could make would be something a little more dialogue-driven than I originally intended. I knew I could find good actors to work with, given the friends I already had and the fact that it was a feature. So, I wanted to focus on something character-driven and wanted to keep the visual style of the film more subdued to allow the performance to do a lot of the storytelling. This also seemed to work with a very place-based story.

Ultimately, I think this turned out to be wise because so many of the technically difficult shots I had planned totally killed our days and the results were often not what I had envisioned despite everyone giving their best effort.

So, in hindsight, scaling back the film stylistically was a wise decision, although at the time it felt like a compromise so great I almost couldn’t stand it. It is so important when you’re making a movie at this scale, I learned, to pick a story that will be elevated by a less “produced” look. Directing requires an understanding of what one can successfully execute well with a given set of circumstances and resources.

In December of 2023, I held a table read at school of the full script. Like all reads, it was helpful. Hearing it read helped me to start to develop even clearer ideas about casting and tone. Just by listening, I could hear when something didn’t fit.

We officially started pre-production on January 1st, 2024. The team was very small at this time and I was taking on nearly all of the producing work. I started to feel the pressure of getting the script to where it needed to be, casting and securing locations, and shot listing/storyboarding the film. We were a few months out and already there was no time.

During that development period working on the script, the times I valued most were the times I was able to just focus on the writing and the story I wanted to tell. It’s so difficult to find the time to write. I ended up staying up most nights so that I could have quiet, uninterrupted blocks of time to work.

Sometimes this meant researching female composers of neoclassical music. Sometimes I’d look back at old photographs of my teenage years in Riverside. Sometimes I’d free-write longhand until something started to feel good and then I’d draft a scene. Writing is a difficult thing but there’s no replacement for showing up and putting in the hours.

I will say that after the experience of this film, one of my biggest takeaways is to not rush development. Give the script all the time it needs. This will mean sacrifice. But, if the script isn’t what you want it to be, the movie almost certainly won’t be.

That is if you’re making a movie with a script in the first place.