I’ve spent the past four nights up ’til the early hours reloading and configuring my PC. But rather than install Windows XP, I’m following my conviction that we can make the short for as little possible, so I investigated the idea of using Linux.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that there is some seriously good editing and effects stuff availble for Linux, namely Cinelerra for editing and compositing and Cinepaint for, well, painting… and they are both free!

So, much to my wife’s annoyance, the Windows system is gone forever (well, until I realise there’s a bit of Windows software I just can’t live without) and we now are the proud owners of a fantastic Fedora Core 3 system.

It’s taken some time to get my head back into Linux mode (I’ve been playing with it on and off for years, but never enough to remember what I did last time), and there are a few bugs with the DV capture which I’ve spent this evening figuring workarounds for, but beyond that, I’m really pleased with it.

But now they are sorted, I just have to figure out how the hell Cinelerra and Cinepaint work (RTFM would be a good start) and we’re flying.

On the screenplay front, Nicola has made some excellent suggestions for improving Secret Thoughts… which I will finish off in the next day or so now I’ve got the Linux bugs quashed for the time being.

Nicola and I were chatting the other day on the fab Yahoo Groups thing I’ve set up to help us organise the short, and she suggested that perhaps I was putting too much direction in. At first, when she said this, I balked and thought to myself that she was quite mad. I knew as well as anyone you didn’t write directions (even if you are going to be the director).

But when she pointed out what she meant I realised that while I wasn’t specifically telling the director how to shoot the film, I’d still fallen into the trap of trying to tell the actors what they are thinking.

This, as Judith Weston would point out, would lead to Result Directing, and makes for a flaccid result lacking in character and depth. Then I remembered something I’d thought when I read the screenplay for Pulp Fiction – that it was all dialogue. At time I didn’t think much of it, but now I’m beginning to see the genius of it, and understand some deeper concepts about subtext.

Thing is, now I’ve got myself all confused about how much detail you should put into a script. I guess the obvious answer is only that which can be seen and heard by the camera. The trick being to convey subtext and internal conflicts and emotions through these actions and dialogue without making it sound like exposition or look dishonest.

I always thought I’d got the concept of ‘show, don’t tell’, looks like I missed the mark somewhat. Suddenly this whole thing just got a whole lot more difficult.