Artist's Statement:
We’re going to write our statement as a dialogue between the two of us about how our writing process worked out, because we think it gives a better idea of how our process went. Here goes!
Rae: So, I got on board with the project a little late. Jason had already come up with a great topic, and done a lot of research all by himself. Jason, tell us a little about where you got the idea for this story.
Jason: The idea mostly came from the connection I have to Alexander McRae, one of Joseph Smith’s bodyguards. He was my great-great-great-grandfather and most (if not all) of the records I have ever found about him have to do with his involvement in Liberty Jail. When we first were ironing out the idea, the plan was to focus on some of the lesser known stories from Liberty Jail, such as the guards trying to feed the prisoners human flesh, but we felt like these were too vague and not very easy to create a good narrative and script around. So, as we studied more about Alexander, we found an account of an attempted jail break that occurred while he was in the jail. Most of the details are directly from an account given by Alexander, and as far as I can tell, his words are the only source known of this attempted breakout.
Rae: I thought it would be fun to try to mimic a jailbreak scene that looked like criminals were escaping, with the audience unaware of who the prisoners are until the very end. Eventually, however, we decided it was best to place the audience’s sympathies with the escapees. We did try to hold on to the idea that it’s unclear who is being held in prison for most of the story.
Jason: I think we succeeded in making the story work as to keeping it hidden from the audience (at least a viewing audience) where the story is taking place and who the characters are.
Rae: We had high aspirations for this piece, but there were a number of challenging things to work through. It was really difficult to translate the idea we shared of how the scenes would go to a script.
1. We knew where we wanted the beats in the story, for instance, but wanted to establish them without resorting to simply writing ‘beat.’
2. We had a certain look in mind for the script, but didn’t want to overwhelm the reader with descriptions.
3. Because our script involves a ridiculous number of characters for such a short sequence, we didn’t have the space to develop every character the way we would have liked.
4. It was difficult to make it clear who the main character was supposed to be. We’re hoping that it is at least implied that the audience sees the scene from Alexander’s point of view.
5. We weren’t sure how much dialogue to put in for the main fight scene. Obviously, it would have been noisy, but explicitly stating what every character was saying would probably have run counter to our objective of keeping the scene as fast paced and sudden as possible.
Jason: The thing that was hardest about the script was trying to make it clear what was happening without going into too much detail that should be open to director interpretation.
Rae: So, what did we learn while working on this?
Jason: The most important thing I learned was more about my ancestor. I had only briefly skimmed his history before this project, and after doing research, I learned so much more about him as a man, as a Mormon, and as a friend of the Prophet Joseph. I didn't even know about the prison break until I studied up on it. This connection is very special to me, and I tried to make the story as true to his account as possible so as to honor him.
Rae knew a lot more about script writing than I did before we started and I learned a lot from her experience. I tend to be very wordy and descriptive, and so it was good to have someone there to rein me back when I became too verbose. I also recognized how deceptively hard it is to translate an idea into a script. Sometimes it was difficult to unify our ideas and keep on the same page as we both sometimes had different opinions, but it also allowed us to expand and expound the good ideas and quickly stifle the bad ones.
Rae: As for me, it was wonderful to have someone to bounce ideas off of. Jason was great! I tend to back myself into corners left and right, but working with Jason helped me move on and sort out any problems we were running in to. It was also good to have to defend all your ideas to someone else. Even though I think I can be a little controlling, he managed to put up with it with a great attitude. He had so much good input.
Through this project, I think I learned a lot about working in a partnership. I usually just want to do everything myself, because I don’t trust other people to do things right. I learned, though, that working together can make your work twice as good. There was no way I could have written this without Jason. Especially because it was all his idea!
Rae: So, I got on board with the project a little late. Jason had already come up with a great topic, and done a lot of research all by himself. Jason, tell us a little about where you got the idea for this story.
Jason: The idea mostly came from the connection I have to Alexander McRae, one of Joseph Smith’s bodyguards. He was my great-great-great-grandfather and most (if not all) of the records I have ever found about him have to do with his involvement in Liberty Jail. When we first were ironing out the idea, the plan was to focus on some of the lesser known stories from Liberty Jail, such as the guards trying to feed the prisoners human flesh, but we felt like these were too vague and not very easy to create a good narrative and script around. So, as we studied more about Alexander, we found an account of an attempted jail break that occurred while he was in the jail. Most of the details are directly from an account given by Alexander, and as far as I can tell, his words are the only source known of this attempted breakout.
Rae: I thought it would be fun to try to mimic a jailbreak scene that looked like criminals were escaping, with the audience unaware of who the prisoners are until the very end. Eventually, however, we decided it was best to place the audience’s sympathies with the escapees. We did try to hold on to the idea that it’s unclear who is being held in prison for most of the story.
Jason: I think we succeeded in making the story work as to keeping it hidden from the audience (at least a viewing audience) where the story is taking place and who the characters are.
Rae: We had high aspirations for this piece, but there were a number of challenging things to work through. It was really difficult to translate the idea we shared of how the scenes would go to a script.
1. We knew where we wanted the beats in the story, for instance, but wanted to establish them without resorting to simply writing ‘beat.’
2. We had a certain look in mind for the script, but didn’t want to overwhelm the reader with descriptions.
3. Because our script involves a ridiculous number of characters for such a short sequence, we didn’t have the space to develop every character the way we would have liked.
4. It was difficult to make it clear who the main character was supposed to be. We’re hoping that it is at least implied that the audience sees the scene from Alexander’s point of view.
5. We weren’t sure how much dialogue to put in for the main fight scene. Obviously, it would have been noisy, but explicitly stating what every character was saying would probably have run counter to our objective of keeping the scene as fast paced and sudden as possible.
Jason: The thing that was hardest about the script was trying to make it clear what was happening without going into too much detail that should be open to director interpretation.
Rae: So, what did we learn while working on this?
Jason: The most important thing I learned was more about my ancestor. I had only briefly skimmed his history before this project, and after doing research, I learned so much more about him as a man, as a Mormon, and as a friend of the Prophet Joseph. I didn't even know about the prison break until I studied up on it. This connection is very special to me, and I tried to make the story as true to his account as possible so as to honor him.
Rae knew a lot more about script writing than I did before we started and I learned a lot from her experience. I tend to be very wordy and descriptive, and so it was good to have someone there to rein me back when I became too verbose. I also recognized how deceptively hard it is to translate an idea into a script. Sometimes it was difficult to unify our ideas and keep on the same page as we both sometimes had different opinions, but it also allowed us to expand and expound the good ideas and quickly stifle the bad ones.
Rae: As for me, it was wonderful to have someone to bounce ideas off of. Jason was great! I tend to back myself into corners left and right, but working with Jason helped me move on and sort out any problems we were running in to. It was also good to have to defend all your ideas to someone else. Even though I think I can be a little controlling, he managed to put up with it with a great attitude. He had so much good input.
Through this project, I think I learned a lot about working in a partnership. I usually just want to do everything myself, because I don’t trust other people to do things right. I learned, though, that working together can make your work twice as good. There was no way I could have written this without Jason. Especially because it was all his idea!
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