Notes from the 434...

I got two really good notes from fellow students in my advanced screenwriting class today. One of the most important thing in the 434 is to be open to suggestions, even when your mind my want to dismiss them. We put up our scene-o-grams on the overhead for the second time and classmates were able to dissect the structure of my script. One student pointed out that she thought that the end of my first act ended wrong. I wanted to avoid being episodic by throwing a curve ball to the audience. She made a great point that the audience, for good or bad, expected something different. Another student pointed out that I could still accomplish my curveball, but in the second act. And voila! My script is much better. Sure, I have to rewrite a few scenes, but they were right. Their suggestions make sense and I'm going to change my script accordingly. This is the reason I go to UCLA.