PEP Talk: Post-Element Production

The Secret Element was announced on Saturday night in Philadelphia. Team Guts Guts Guts Guts is NYC-based, so we did not attend the event in person. Instead, we got together and kept refreshing our email until 5:45pm when the news finally came through--the Secret Element is "JUMP."

In less than a half-hour we had a crazy "Jump"-related concept* that we all agreed on and before the end of the night, had a very rough outline of what our ten-minute film would look and sound like. It was not without deep, passionate discussion, but it's amazing how easily our nearly complete idea came together.

The next day, the hard part started. Are four heads better than one when writing a script? Maybe if you have 21 days to write it. Our collaboration definitely benefited from the many perspectives on our concept, lots of options for approaching action, and the varied and unique perspectives on filmmaking, but then again we also argued for 30 minutes straight about whether a minor character should stand up or sit down when delivering a single line of a dialogue. All told, by the end of Sunday night, we only completed about a minute of the screenplay.

The clock is ticking...

* Our apologies--we're not in a position to share any specifics yet, but I will share this picture from a test shoot we attempted in early July. It's Kirk giving Wally a sexy, purposely misspelled knuckle tattoo.