What began as a "what if" topic of conversation for post-bar excursions back home, driving entirely illegially over the limit, Saturday Night was our take on what a college movie would really be like. One weekend, while in the midst of watching our lives slowly fall apart, Doug and I decided to take it to the next level. We started an outline. Within an hour, we had the first scene written to a movie we had tentavely titled "Saturday Night", taken from the highly influential, old school Goo Goo Dolls song, "Nothing Can Change You."
We ended up spending about a month sleeping all day, heading out to the bar, where we would nurse endless glasses of beer, plotting our next moves for the movie we were becoming more and more excited about, and more and more emotionally attatched to. The rough draft, finished some time later, at the expense of our grades and willingness to stay in school, was a 350+ page manuscript we had no idea how to sell.
So we spent an appalling amount of money to get the whole thing printed out...30 times...with cover sheets and forwarding letters, which we sent out to production companies we tracked down on the invaluable imdb.com. All were returned with letters that said, more or less, we do not accept open applications of screenplays, please find an agent and stop being fucking amateurs. So the project was scrapped. Our big dreams of quitting school, running away to Hollywood and becoming big movie producers/actors/screenwriters went into the dumpster, along with our current positions in the student body of our respective schools.
About a year later, we got a lucky break. Through my dad, through an employee of his, through a friend of that guy. We got in touch with Tom Sawyer Productions. A guy named Jesse, who was from columbus, and understood our postion of having no idea of how to make it to where we wanted to be, gave us a helping hand. We sent him the screenplay...which was immediately returned with the message : This is about 150 pages too long.
So we went back to work. We rewrote it probably five times, cut down, repaired faulty scenes, and in the end, produced a much tighter, much more polished, and much less satisfying version of Saturday Night. When that too was returned, we effectively gave up. He wanted to know what the point was. The dialogue was tight, the story was fractured. We had a bunch of characters who seemed to show little to no remorse foor their actions, and it ended with him wondering if our main characters had learned their lessons at all, and why as an audience, people were supposed to like them.
We never had thought of it that way. It was a story...about a weekend spent in college. It was real, at least, it was real to us. Loosely based upon our own experiences, with our own feelings of angst and fear of the unknown beyond the college existence. What lessons were they expected to learn? Johnny and Steve were just two guys who went through life with the mentality of, First I'm gonna show up...then I'm gonna see what happens. People dont change, no matter how much movies want to make us believe it is so. No, we merely take what comes, and make adjustments accordingly. Motivations may change, dreams may change, but in the end, your'e still going to be essentially the same person.
So now, three or four years later, in a recent phone conversation, Doug and I both admitted that Saturday Night remained a scar. We had unfinished business with Johnny and Steve, and in many ways, I think that because they bear so similiar a resemblence to us, at least in motivation and personality, we needed to see what ended up happening to them. So began the great project of Saturday Night: the novel.
What we have going on now is, I think, a more mature and seperated story of that famous weekend Johnny and Steve spent together. No longer living simlar lives to our characters has given us a much clearer perspective of exactly what kind of guys Johnny and Steve are, and what exactly Saturday Night is all about. It's about the tackling of inner demons, the pursuit of an idealistic way of life and love.
Saturday Night is, at its heart, a story about love and the ways and reasons we find it. It's about frienship, real friendship, the kind you forge by spending drunken nights boozing, fighting, and trying to find a solid hook up.
So, feel free to enjoy and live vicariously through these guys, cause I assure you, we are doing it with you. Because of my hectic life and schedule, updates will come as they can, and if you're patient, I promise you, you'll enjoy yourself. If you're one of the lucky ones who are already familiar with this story, dont worry, all of the awesomeness and basic story line remains...and I think you'll be pleasently surprised with the changes and new additions.
Hope everyone enjoys. It's always fun to go back to college.
