Author: cheese and gum

The filming script for “All the Others Were Practice” was never intended to be read by anyone other than by the actors, but it is fairly instructive on what happens when a script gets produced. It is written with the intention of filming it on a tiny budget, but the budget was tinier than we’d anticipated.

There was only one scene that we didn’t film – when Jôrge and Tony make out on the back porch. We just ran out of time that day and couldn’t get cast and location together again.

The script has Glen, Pam and baby Pearl more balanced in the story, but we were not able to get a real baby on set. To have a baby on set for just 4 hours would have cost more than an entire ten hour filming day.

Just a week before filming the numbers shook out and baby Pearl got nixed. That caused a hasty re-write of some scenes and a doomed and creepy search for a realistic baby doll. But the scenes with Pearl were about people interacting with her, and if at any point the baby looked like a rubber doll, the thin rope of credibility from which this film dangled would surely snap.

The script tells a slightly different story than the finished film does, and unfortunately, what made it to the screen feels pale compared to what we had envisioned, but such is filmmaking.

If you’ve watched the film, reading the script might fill in a few plot holes, and give you a view of the difference between writing a film, and producing one.