If you’re an industry person, you may have heard this term or used it–development hell. Development hell refers to the often chaotic, messy, frustrating business of getting a script ready to go into pre-production. No script comes to a producer perfect and camera ready.
Draft 1
We like the script, but there are few things that we need to change. Here is what we want changed: add this character, expand another character, take away the annoying mom character–and can you get this down to 90 pages?
Draft 2
This wasn’t what we had in mind. You know, I had this really great idea for some comic relief at the beginning, since it’s a heavy drama…
Draft 3
This is a mess.
Draft 4
Why is the subplot so much more interesting than the main plot? Should we go a different direction?
Draft 5
We should go a different direction.
Draft 6
Is this too political?
Draft 7
It’s coming together, but we need to find a compelling role for (insert expensive actor’s name here).
Draft 8
Repeat process, starting above.
Kristin West 