The agony and ecstasy of Draft 16
Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Rewrite
Last week I was working on a pitch deck. I had a call recently with my agents and producers for this feature I want to direct — and as we’ve slowly begun to assemble a little bit of a team (me, the producers, a lead) we are approaching the point at which we try to get some of Hollywood’s most Very Important People involved — people with money.
So… before we begin to send all of the materials out to some of these extremely important and popular and brave and kind and good people (aka, the people with $money$) everyone had some thoughts about my deck for the project.
Could it be better? Could it tell us more about the film’s look and tone? Could it tell us more about you as the director? Could it tell us more about how you plan to visually capture what you’re describing in the script? Could it also be shorter?
I was annoyed. Because… I liked the deck. The deck was good. Is good. The deck has been through many, many, many drafts. I just counted. Fourteen drafts. And I didn’t want to do another one, because I don’t know that there’s anything new for me to say that I haven’t already.
But the next day I re-read the deck. And… there were new things for me to say. I’d thought a lot more about how we could capture this character. And someone on our call had mentioned the idea that “getting someone to invest in a film isn’t really about getting them to invest in film in general, but getting them to feel like they have to invest in this film right now. And there was something about that framing that made me think, “well, I could probably make a more compelling case for why this matters to me, and might matter to investors.”
And before I knew it, I had InDesign open and was… futzing. On Draft 15.
I spent the rest of the week working on this deck. It’s the one way to visually convey everything I want the movie to be. The one way to convey my sensibility and worldview. The one way to show everything I’ve been thinking about when I’ve been thinking about making this movie, and why I think it matters RIGHT NOW.
Here’s a sort of collage I made for myself that will give you a vibe check on the movie.
See??? It really is about RIGHT NOW.
Since the 14th draft had been something I’d finished a few months ago, and I’ve had probably a hundred conversations about the movie since then, I had new things to say. Today. Right now.
I also, for context, was revising it LAST WEEK. It was a famously chill time to be working on something, as ICE arrived to kidnap and/or beat up my neighbors and as WWIII potentially kicked off. Interesting time to be writing a movie about living in interesting times, no?
So I had things to say. Which helped me write the 15th draft. And I think this is little discussed within Hollywood, but I think 15 drafts is actually extremely normal. And… I think if you aren’t doing upwards of 15+ drafts of something you aren’t really… working hard enough? Trying hard enough? Putting enough care and effort into your work to make something undeniably good?
Is this a hot take? Sorry! I don’t think it is? I don’t know. Let me know. Or better yet, let someone else know!
I get sent a lot of decks, actually. It’s often a way that directors or producers pitch ideas to writers when they don’t yet have a script and want to bring someone on. And, a lot of the stuff I receive looks… mid? Dashed off? Kind of lame and uninspiring? And when I get those decks I think to myself “were they hoping they’d send me this and I would now care passionately about a project that they seem… kind of invested in?”
I get sent a lot scripts that are in their 3rd or 4th or 5th draft. And asked, “is this ready?” And the answer is usually… no. In the same way that my 3rd or 4th or 5th draft is not. There is still more to do. A lot more to do.
I’m not excited about hearing this, when I’m the one on my third draft. When I’ve sent it to someone I trust and they say… “hmm… there’s some interesting stuff in here…” I’m annoyed. I know there’s interesting stuff in here! I’ve been writing and rewriting that interesting stuff for hundreds of hours at this point!
And so I am also not excited to be sharing this feedback with anyone else when I read their drafts. I do not revel in telling people “you have a long way to go.”
But, this is the process. Every single film and television show you are seeing, even the very bad ones, have already had to go a very, very, very long way to get to you.
I’ve written before about the fact that the subconscious solves problems while we are not thinking about them and the creative cycle of “great to garbage to great again.” Same article, actually! Efficient! Or maybe I should have rewritten and split it into two articles. There is something that happens simply from the process of thinking about something, trying things out, seeing that they’ve failed, diagnosing how and why they may have failed, and doing this over and over again that stress-tests the material. And trust me, material will be stress-tested. I have sold scripts that have gone on to literal production and you still end up on the floor with a piece of paper and a pencil re-writing something at the very last second because someone has a better idea. The film isn’t finished, truly until you are watching it on the big screen. Until then… someone behind the scenes is probably thinking… we could maybe tweak this a tiny bit to improve it. Is this exhausting? Yes? Perfectionist? Yes. The way you need to be when working in film? I think so.
In addition to the deck, I just sent my agents a new spec screenplay that I’ve been noodling on since 2022? Maybe longer? I just counted, and that was on its 14th draft. My agents had some notes.
I know that we like instant results. And I know we like easily digested narratives about our artists, especially the kind that go: “I started this date and finished this date, and look at me I’m a wunderkind” but… that’s not what it’s like. Do not fall for the hype. The rare “it all just sort of came to me in a flash and I jotted it down over the course of a weekend…” is marketing buzz. It’s not the real deal. And even if it does happen for someone once, divine inspiration is not a system. Nor is it a method that can be repeated. The only real methodology for making a great piece of art is… trial and error. Over and over and over again.
Refine refine refine. Obsess obsess obsess. Perfect perfect perfect.
What’s happening in each draft? I talked a little about it here, but basically I’m usually working with a funnel approach. After the very first draft, revisions will focus on big structural things, characters, the broadest of strokes, and as you move forward to later drafts, those notes and changes and refinements become smaller. Then, somewhere around draft 4 or 5, I’ll end up changing something big and structural and dramatic in order to fix what has never quite worked about the movie. There’s always something. Cutting an act entirely, removing a character, changing the setting, there’s usually something that fundamentally could change which will be… A LOT OF WORK. It’s usually something I don’t really feel like doing, because it’s going to mean basically starting over. But I do it. Even though I don’t want to. Then I iron out the wrinkles from that for a while. Then I do something dramatic again. Rinse and repeat.
People don’t usually want to hear about the tremendous effort it goes into making something good become something great. It’s not particularly sexy. And it’s not particularly fun. It’s kind of grueling. (Hence “the agony” in the title of this piece). But there is something that happens when the hundreds of hours become thousands of hours… you can kind of see through the individual edit decisions and quirks of the script to the heart of the matter. It’s like this.
So while Hollywood’s hustle culture would have us writing a lot, and fast, remember: it is normal to need many, many, many drafts to get it right.
It is normal for that to mean many more drafts than you want it to be. And it’s normal to get to draft… six, nine, twelve, and feel like you are losing your mind. Fortunately/unfortunately, it’s what you’ve signed up for.
Assuming you want to make something great.
Not everyone does.
Oh. And as for my pitch deck?
I sent the 15th draft to my producers and the consensus was… “Looks great! We just aren’t sure about the cover page.” So I did a couple mock-ups of new options, found one everyone liked, proof-read it, fixed typos I’d previously missed (there are always typos) and now we’re ready to go with a new and improved deck, Draft 16.
Let’s normalize really, really, really giving a shit. If only so I don’t go crazy next time I’m doing it. Give this a share with your writer friend who’s deep in it. Or not getting in deep enough.
So… what’s normal for you weirdos? Highest number of drafts you’ve done? I’m not talking tweaks, I’m talking full scale changes. Let me know in the comments.
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I think French Kissing is up to 12 ish total rewrites. It's wild to see the things that have survived each demolition and rebuild, not always what I would have expected, now those images or scenes are so strong because they've been around the longest, they hold the script up. Survival of the fittest scene.
Thanks for sharing the process, Colby. I agree: We need to normalize people giving a shit and making things better...