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Buildout Your Script, part 2: A Decision Every Moment

By Jacob Krueger

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As we continue to build out the new home for Jacob Krueger Studio (in expectation of a Jan 1 move in!) this series of podcasts will explore the many ways in which building out a space is like building out a script, taking some of the lessons I’ve learned in our buildout, and applying them to writing.

Today’s podcast covers a topic that any screenwriter, and anyone who has ever built out a space, knows well. The millions of little decisions you have to make at every moment of your buildout, and on every page of your script.

As those of you who have taken our screenwriting classes know, when you don’t know what choice to make in your script, you look towards your theme to guide you. Just like when you don’t know exactly what choice to make in your space, you look toward the purpose you ultimately want that space to serve.

But what do you to when your theme changes? Or when you’re not really sure what your theme is yet?

I recently faced this quandary while running Ethernet, HDMI , USB and microphone wiring for the online setup of our new classrooms. I knew that I wanted to build the most incredible experience possible for our online students, with top-end microphone, camera and television setup that would allow every student to see, hear and participate as if they were live in the room.

The challenge of course was that the ideal setup would be different for each kind of class we offered, and each decision I had to make seemed dependent on a million other choices: Would we be using HDMI cameras, IP cameras, USB cameras or some technology yet to be invented? Would the cameras always be in the same positions, or would they need to move for different classes? What technology would our students all over the world be most comfortable with, and which of these top-end solutions would it be compatible with?

We only had one chance to do this the right way, before the sheetrock went up, the insulation went in, and running wires inside the wall became very difficult and expensive, I found myself up all night for many nights, crunching on one wiring blueprint after another. Trying to figure out every possible scenario for the next ten years, before I’d even taught my first class in our new space.

Yeah, it was a nightmare.

Then I realized, of course it was a nightmare! For the same reason writing a script this way would be a nightmare.

Because, as nice as it would be to know every element you were ever going to need in your story before you wrote the first page, the truth is, you need to know the variables you’re playing with before you can learn how to play with them.

You have to let the story show you what it wants to be, and sometimes that means writing some scenes, or running some wires, that aren’t going to make it to the final draft. There are some things that you’re just not going to realize you need until you’ve lived in the script for awhile, and really come to understand what you’re building.

So how do you accept the messy nature of this process, while still “running your wires” in a way that’s likely to serve the final product you’re building?

Fortunately, there is a long history of great writers, all with their own solutions for this very problem…

Paddy Chayefsky, the writer of Network used start out by writing one word above his typewriter.

So, for example, he might write Capitalism above his typewriter before he started a project. This was his way of focusing his theme consciously. He allowed himself to write anything he wanted,