Long Tan Movie – Script Progress

We are very busy working on the next script draft for our Long Tan movie and we wanted to let you in on some of the steps we are currently working through during the development phase.

The first thing we wanted to outline is that obviously a movie is not a documentary (and we’ve already done one of those anyway!) and therefore there are certain techniques, dramatisations and liberties we need to take in order to make a great, memorable movie. However, we are keeping these to an absolute minimum. The fact that we are dealing with a true story actually complicates our task even more but at the same time it also presents us with a huge array of story and character opportunities.

Movie - Step Outline Cards

We are currently working through what is called the ‘Step Outline’ phase. A Step Outline is around 40 odd pages and each step is effectively a short description of each scene, what happens in that scene and who is in it. To the right is an example of a Step Outline, in this case for the Die Hard movie:

This step outline is our roadmap for another full draft script.

Once this step outline is complete and we are happy with it, we then move to a full draft script. A full draft script is usually around 1 page per minute of screen time.

A full draft script is what we use to complete the financing of the movie and secure all of the principle cast and creative team.

However, this is not the end of any changes to the script. This script draft may actually be rewritten anywhere from 2-3 times all the way up to 12 times before we get to a final shooting script. The shooting script is what is used during production of the movie by the director, crew and actors.

We expect to have the full step outline complete in mid to late November and then we will quickly move into the draft script phase. The draft script phase will take around 8-12 weeks depending on how happy we are with its progress!

This will in fact be the third full draft script we have developed. Previously we felt that we just hadn’t yet nailed the drama, character, suspense and ‘whose story it is’. Long Tan is not about a single character, a single person or a single hero. It is the sum of all of the individuals who participated in this amazing story.

A movie is a form of story telling and to enable audiences to understand, connect and empathise with the story they have to follow and live the story through a number of characters. We don’t really want to say too much more about the script direction, suffice to say we are all very, very excited with this new direction and with our new team of writers.

We believe that we now have the makings of an exciting film which will stand the test of time and appeal not only to Australian and New Zealand audiences but also to many other people from around the world.

Please let us know what aspects of the story have resonated with you the most and which characters have made the greatest impression on you!