Send me the script
A picture paints a thousand words. But that's not enough.
Why
Here's an excerpt of the shortest short I've ever worked on, "Afterlight" from 3Dstories:
INT. DARKROOM - DAY
With tongs he places the photographic paper in the stop bath
tray and his wife appears slowly. He hangs her up with a
clothes peg and sure enough there is depth to the image.
She appears beautifully rounded, set into the photographic
paper, the long sandy beach stretching out behind her.
Staring into the image, a tear wells up and he wipes it from
his face. He hears the sound of the sea lapping at the shore
and reaches up to touch her.
She is brought to life, rubbing sun tan lotion into her shoulders.
On the cut I got, the photos were still rectangular pieces of green paper with X marks on them, so that said "depth" can be added in 3D post.
So no matter how it was shot, there's no way I would hear "the sound of the sea lapping at the shore", nor would I know if our character was supposed to hear it, or, in any case, how much emphasis the director wants to put on that sound.
The only way for me to know is the original script, where that trigger of an action drives the storyline directly. Anything else would be my interpretation of the pictures.
But there's more
Now I could have him "hear" this and simulate it being in his head. Or I can choose to "worldise" the beach and play a painstakingly put together second of sound that seems to come out of the photo, the rest of the darkroom utterly quiet.
You know which I chose, but that's beyond the point. How the script was originally worded contains information I find more than precious. For the filmmaker (who has read it hundreds of times) it's easy to say "Here's the cut, just watch it. Plus the script changed anyway." But when I am approaching a new project, all fresh and knowing nothing about a film that's yet to be post-produced, that's the kind of detail I am most interested in, and the detail I am most likely to miss.
So send me the script. I don't mind the changes.
