Visual Outcome Reflection: First Drafts

There was no real thought behind starting the visual outcome by actually writing a review. It didn't strike me as odd. It just seemed like the natural first step in my making process. I'm not a terribly visual person when it comes to the first stages of storytelling. I usually don't make webs or big brainstorm charts. I take a lot of notes, and I look at my notes. I take some more notes. And I type on my computer. That's about it, usually. I knew that writing about Romeo & Juliet first would help me clear my head. It was a way of purging a bunch of shitty ideas. I can handle shitty ideas in writing. I didn't know if I could kill bad ideas as easily once they were in an animatic or placed in the film. As Anne Lamott says, I saw my written reviews as my "shitty first drafts" of my film. They weren't separate. These writings, somehow, would become...unwritings? Or something?

Knowing that writers don't have tons of time to write a review after a performance, I thought it would be good to just practice the act of writing a review. And in retrospect, I suppose I wanted to test one half of my idea before going further: I wanted to use the review of Romeo & Juliet as a way in to write about another issue. In this case, I wanted to use the opportunity to address the technology of the performance and the marketing of the ballet as an event. A question I tried to answer throughout the written review was, why this advertising now? Why not use advertising for the performances at the Royal Opera House?

As I wrote notes and formed outlines, I tried to pay attention to a couple of ideas because I knew they would play out later in the visual outcome:

1. What you leave out is as important as what you leave in. There was a lot of stuff I wanted to say, especially because I was enraged that the Royal Opera House could charge me 50 pounds to come to North Greenwich and watch a screen. I wanted to talk about how brilliant Alina Cojocaru was when I could actually make out her tiny body on stage, and I wanted to write about how impossible it was to enjoy her dancing because the giant screens were so distracting. All we saw were faces and upper bodies. It was suddenly like silent theatre. I wanted to write that the Royal Ballet has the wrong idea of what their 'new, young audience' wants (we don't want a mass experience; we want to feel like insiders). I wanted to say that none of what I'm writing matters because once the tens of thousands showed up and planted themselves in their seats, the ballet would be dubbed a success. In this case, I felt it really was pointless to write about what happened on stage. However, I knew that most of what I was writing wouldn't show up in the visual outcome. At one point, I didn't think any of the actual words I had written would be a part of it.

2. Which brings me to the need to sum it up. Throughout the writing process, I became more and more conscious that my writing would need to be fairly simple — simple, clear ideas — so that I could make it even more clear for a visual outcome (that might not even use my ownwriting to direct it). And after getting through quite a number of drafts (I made new drafts to rearrange, to cut and to add. Each one was a development from the next; not a complete revision), I was able to sum up my review fairly concisely:

1. The self-proclaimed "world's greatest ballet company" was performing in the world's "greatest arena."

2. Did it work?

3a. No.

3b. We were drawn to the screens like flies to light

3c. We had come to a performance to experience it through filters.

3d. Whatever happened on-stage was the supplemental lip-synch of the real deal.

4. The success of the 'experiment' was in the marketing. Where was this marketing in other RB productions? Why isn't it being used to bring audiences to the Royal Opera House (When you got it, flaunt it)?

5a. If you're trying to reach a new young audience, you have to make them feel special; not one of the crowd.

So after zooming in to write about 800 words, I zoomed way out to whittle my argument down to a few points. This became the next working draft of the visual outcome.