John August rewrites a scene [VID]

I dunno, I think all he did was make the scene fat and contrived, and frankly generic.

I liked the idea of ONE SHOT of extension cords back to his mom's house, but all that business...
 
Why all these tactile details? By creating a problem outside the trailer, the writer is implying that the female character has invested into Walter's life. She's sitting inside waiting for him to finish like a helpless housewife.

The scene had nothing to do with the cords outside. I agree that a single tracking shot of the cords would have been great. This relationship revolving around the cords is extremely contradictory to the original scene/ relationship. And that's what the entire rewrite was based on. I think there were a few starting points superior to starting the scene with a problem outside.

Saying "Buy 2 and you get one free" is more distracting than saying "Buy 2 grams". Grams is fairly common terminology in drug deals, I imagine.

The scene was about this woman freezing her ass off & buying drugs from this random pathetic man. Now she's NOT cold, he's not random (we see way too much from his perspective in fact), and the drugs sound like pieces of candy. But seeing a rewrite in process is fun I will admit. You certainly gain and lose a lot of information with just a couple "hunches" and moments of inspiration.

Overall, I agree with Mark. We started with a slice of life scene and ended with an inflated scene with conflict where no conflict was needed.
 
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I like John August more as a person and the info he imparts on his blog than as an actual writer. Not that he's terrible. He just never wrote anything that made me go, WOW. I thought he screwed up Charlie & The Chocolate Factory by taking an arc away from the boy and giving one to Willy. I found Big Fish highly overrated. And the less said about the 2 Charlie's Angels movies, the better (I got some enjoyment out of the first one, but not for the writing).
 
Mark, Knoxworth and Batutta.(Sounds like a late night dui law firm). Agree with all your comments. The drug thing sounds silly at best (every screenwriter I know in Hollywood is familiar with drugs whether they partake or not). The heater going off would more likey be caused by a triped breaker (maybe he has to hunt for an old fashion fuse to replace, the electrical might be ancient). But it's fun to see his process.
 
I thought that he had some good notes, but in my opinion, the original scene needed to be tighter, not longer.
 
I'm not particularly taken with the style before or after. I prefer spartan, concise writing whenever possible. Still, taking the original intent and tweaking it is what happens in re-writes.

I like hearing his process regardless of whether the outcome is what my outcome would be.
 
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