We're nearing the first act break here on page 3 of the script. I always use a three-act structure in all of my projects. Some people subscribe to 5 acts, some more some less, but I've always found the three-act structure to be the best for me. It basically boils down to the introduction, the rising action and the resolution - just like middle-school English class... Paranoid's second act begins after she realizes she's loosing her listener and she hits us with "listen, listen, do listen, you must listen..."

The first handwritten note on the page reads: "slow build - start to feel the panic." Again, this is a reference to the Woman's voice-over and her frame of mind at that point in time.

The next notation in the left-hand column is: "starting the plea-" This is where she's almost begging for our attention. She's saying - 'This is what is happening! Don't you believe me? How much more do I have to prove to you!?'

The final notation is: "Forceful - Life & Death." - She realizes she's got to get hold of her listener if she's going to get anywhere with them. She's absolutely GOT to make them/us listen. This was changed slightly in the translation. Instead of making her forceful right from the start, I made that first listen more of a 'did you hear that?' kind of moment and then came on strong.

There are two other elements of this script page that didn't make it to the final cut. Scene 8 has the woman rubbing her foot in the corner. It was a moment that I thought would be fantastic and we shot it as scripted, but when it came to editing, that particular shot didn't fit in right with the pacing and flow of the whole sequence, so it was eventually cut.

The second part of this page (the non-highlighted section), there is a handwritten note which reads: "Backwards writing in book shot right to left." This was an idea I got while watching the end credits to David Fincher's Seven (an obvious source of inspiration to the whole film). The credits to that film roll downward - the opposite of the normal - and it is very disconcerting. I thought - what if she was writing backward in her journal? So that the line 'They examine the back loops of pees and the crosses of tees..." would actually read "tees of crosses the and pees of loops back the examine they..." but the camera would pan across the words from right to left so that they would be readable, but disconcerting. However - the power of sound is very strong and combining her voice-over with the actual words overrode the backward writing to make the moment totally ineffectual. It was ultimately cut in favor of a normally shot line of prose.




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© 2000 Adakin Productions
Paranoid: A Chant © Stephen King. Used by permission.
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Last Update 03 Dec 2000