First, I wrote a short screenplay called The Climb.

Next, I corrected a billion spelling mistakes and called it a day.

Years later when we decided to make the movie, I engaged in a series of rewrites.

After a few months of pre-production, I improved it even further.

This week, we had our first cast read through and rehearsal.

It was time to tweak the script.

The moral of the story? It got better every time!

You really do have to be open to changes and let the script evolve on it’s own. Version 5.1 of The Climb is easily the best and most polished to date.

Here’s why…

Listening and observing actors perform gives you a lot of information you may not have considered when writing the script.

Lines that sound fantastic on the page may not translate well in real life.

This process will bring some much needed changes to light and in the case of The Climb, the changes were welcome.

The beauty of rehearsing with actors lies in the conversations you have throughout.  Everyone involved had comments, questions and suggestions dealing with everything from dialogue to motivation.

What’s amazing to me is most of the tweaks made sense.  It had me thinking:

“Why didn’t I think of that before?”

To me it doesn’t matter as long as I feel like I’ve done everything I can before the cameras roll.

That and there is no better feeling than implementing a new idea that makes a screenplay better.   It’s never too late to eliminate a line that isn’t working or change words here and there.

Tweaks are not to be feared.

They are absolutely vital to creating a shooting draft that you and everyone involved will believe in.

The more I refine the script, the happier I am because it keeps getting better.  To a certain extent, it scares me a little bit when I think about the changes I may realize once it’s too late and we’ve wrapped.

To quote athletes everywhere…

“You have to leave it on the court.”

The same rule applies to the ice, the field, the movie set and even the cutting room floor.

What I mean by that, is that I feel confident knowing I worked as hard as possible because there is a point when you have to let go.

For me that won’t happen until I yell cut on the final take.

In short…  I like rewrites.

They are a crucial part of the filmmaking process.