Writing Process for Following

The 1998 feature film about a young writer who follows strangers for material meets a thief who takes him under his wing.
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chee wrote:
akv1984 wrote:Yeah. It probably was. One day I hope that Nolan could do an interview with the people on the board and answer all our questions. I'm really intrigued by the way he works and would love to learn more about it.
Nolan should sign up on Nolan Fans. ;)

Hahah. A fan of himself? 8-)
Hell if I was Nolan, I'd be a fan of myself too! I'd join all of my fanpages on Facebook and sign up on all the sites dedicated to me.

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he's watching us right now. :crazy:

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writing a script is difficult enough itself. can't imagine how difficult could it be following a non-linear order..

probably the best thing to do is to write down a scheme with the basic structure of the movie, first time following how the events will appear with the finished product, then in chronological order, just to fill in all the links and be sure that nothing's out of its place.
Then the script can begin with the real order (the non-linear one).

Me and a friend of mine tried to do it: I'm still writing down mine, and i have to admit it's very difficult, because I'm focusing on what can keep the audience concentration high without annoying them (and maybe surprise them with cool cliffanghers).. hope i can finish it soon.
My friend finished writing and even shooting.. he changed many details during shoots, and his short became more complicated than it was before.. if i didn't know the story, i wouldn't have understood when i first watched it.

that's another important thing.. movies like Memento or Following are brilliant because even if they're difficult, you can find out an interpretation (one of the several..), and after 2 or 3 visions you can understand pretty well. Some movies (i think about Lynch..) are just impossible, 'cause probably even the director didn't know exactly what to tell (see Inland Empire..) !!

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no-linear scripts are usually written in chronological order with non-linear in mind.
then they edit it to be non-linear.

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#1fan wrote:no-linear scripts are usually written in chronological order with non-linear in mind.
then they edit it to be non-linear.
That may be how they are normally done, but I thought I heard Nolan once say that he writes his movies in the order they appear on screen.

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one thing is sure:

non-linear films often are more attractive than the chronological ones... but the creative process is definitely more difficult.

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;)

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Time and patience is what I imagine the process is like for writing Following. I mean, he took a year to shoot it due to schedule conflicts. I'm sure he'd adjust some things in that time. I would. In my opinion, if you're the writer/director -- the script doesn't set things in stone. It's a guideline.

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Mr. Jet wrote:In my opinion, if you're the writer/director -- the script doesn't set things in stone. It's a guideline.
yep

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"It's the blueprint for a film, not the bible"

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