Auteur : Martine

I know some of the English speaking readers of this blog tend to skip the posts I write in French so I’ll allow myself to say this again en anglais just to put future posts in context: I’m living a big first these days as a screenplay I wrote (cowrote, actually) is starting shooting in Montreal this weekend. It’s what we’d call here « une com�die dramatique », in this case a romantic comedy involving high school students just about to graduate.

There has been a very short delay between the time when the financing was gathered (all private, a first for a Quebec movie of that scope) and the time the production started. In the whirlwind that ensued, I found myself – just like many feature screenwriters before me – a bit out of the loop on the development of things. I hear about casting decisions on the phone when the crazily busy producer (and co-writer) has a minute to call, I’ve met the director only very briefly and I hear through the producer about changes to the screenplay when they involve a rewrite that’s longer than a few lines.

It’s an odd situation to have spent so much time with a screenplay, defending lines and discussing every changes, only to see it take off on its own like a child ready to move out of the house. It will be weird to go on the set and to be a stranger to the people who are now part of the project.

I know it’s the nature of the screenwriter’s job so I’m not too surprised and I’m getting used to it. I’m in a big rush on the book project I’m working on so the timing isn’t good anyway. I do hope that one day I’ll get to work very closely with a director, all the way through the shoot and during post-production. But hey, if I had wanted to direct, I should have stuck with it after grad school!

I read a lot of interviews with screenwriters and it’s funny to find myself in situations I’ve heard them describe over and over again. For example, a very well-known actress has agreed to join our cast but thought that one of her rare scenes should be expanded a bit, both in duration and intensity. It’s a request done by a lot of actors, if I believe the stories I read.

So I ended up doing a rewrite last night on a pivotal scene of the screenplay. What could have been an annoying task turned into a really exciting experience. I’ve seen that very talented actress act in numerous productions over the years. Knowing her voice and style helped me flesh out the character more and even though I always liked the scene the way it was (it was even one of my favorites in the story), I found myself so much more inspired by her « presence » that the scene ended up taking a more powerful dimension. I even felt quite moved while I was writing it, which I knew was a good sign. (Or maybe a sign that I was too tired.) I e-mailed the changes to the co-writer. She read it and she yelled at me, in a good way, for making her cry first thing in the morning!

I can’t wait to see what both the actress and the director will do with that scene. I’m learning to let go though. I know it’s way out of my hands at this point… ;-)

Like any kid, I kept a few collections when I was growing up. I collected stickers, pins, hockey cards, but I quickly got bored and gave them up.

What I never tired of collecting though was rocks.

I just loved rocks. I’d picked them out for their shape, their colour, for the little glitter of gold I saw in them or just because they looked lonely in the middle of the sidewalk. I would often leave them in my pockets and my mom would find them at the bottom of the washing machine. I’d keep them in bowls of water by my bed because everybody knows that rocks look better when they are wet. The bottom drawer of my nightstand was full of my favorite rocks, the ones I wanted to keep close to me.

I had no interest in rock formation, geology or gemology. I didn’t want to learn about them. I just liked rocks. I liked the weight of them in my hand. I liked their faint, organic odor, their texture against my skin.

I did think the concept of a pet rock was silly though. I didn’t want faces on my rocks. I just wanted to look at them the way they were.

I got over the rock collecting thing, of course. But if you were to go through my drawers now, you’d still find a few stones here and there.

I nearly had a stone orgasm a couple of years ago when Blork and I went to Nova Scotia. He took me to a deserted beach in Cape Breton and I found myself in heaven: miles and miles of absolutely perfect shaped pebbles, the kind you pay a fortune for at garden centers. Discovering that beach was like finding a treasure. You know those dreams we all have where we keep finding money on the ground and we pick it up and we find more money and it never stops?

I started picking stones like mad, quickly filling up Blork’s pockets as well as mine. I was really bummed out that we had flown to Nova Scotia because it meant I was restricted on the amount of stones I could take back. I’m still considering driving back there and bringing back home boxes and boxes of the pebbles. The rock garden I would make!

The stones are now in a decorative bowl in our dining room. I keep two of the heavy, flat pebbles by my desk, piled one on top of the other, and I often grab them and play with them in my hands as I think about something to write. (They are also great to keep books open and flat.)

All of this to say that I went crazy this morning when I saw the new line of furniture that a French design company has started making. I. Must. Have. A. Rock. Chair.

I must. Please sell them in Canada soon.