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This is our original story pitch notes to studio that got us the assignment. It really lays out the idea quickly and to the point.

Scope and Contents

These are my original and only set of notes as I try and figure out how to break this story. Please excuse my spelling. I’m a poor speller and my IBM Selectric typewriter did not have spell check. In addition, I am writing fast and looking for the idea not concerned about someone else reading this material. I’m willing to have egg on my face for the sake of academic study, but again, I’m looking to break an idea and I’m not concerned about how it will read.

Scope and Contents These 26 pages are an example of Jim taking a run at the idea and seeing where it gets us. Unfortunately, this is a dead end. Jim liked to “Rip” on an idea and just run wild with it. Write from sheet inspiration and fun. That’s one reason Jim was such a successful writer. He loved to write. Love to play with words, create characters, link dialogue lines together like poetry. He was willing to take changes and fail. It really didn’t bother either of us to try something and come...

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This is another run at the story, but several important characters appear: Steve Turner, Maggie and Murdoch.

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These are Jim’s hand written pages. Jim had great handwriting and at this time in his career liked to write by hand. Computers were not available to us at this time. Jim liked to go the MSU Union Grill and write there. He liked to noise and the hustle and bustle. He said it helped him concentrate. These are special pages since they are in his hand.

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This is a typed version of Jim’s pages but again it goes nowhere. This is the way we worked in the beginning. We liked to take runs at the story to see where it would go and many times it would go nowhere. WE would discover characters or story elements that we would try and make sense out of later. Jim was a streak writer at that time and liked just to write at will. Later on, it became to exhausting for Jim to write without knowing exactly where we were going.

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The characters are clearer here and the story is starting to take shape.

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The story and characters are taking further shape. These are not actual drafts but are work approaches.

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This is our First Draft of WHEREABOUTS. At 158 pages it’s pretty long and we cut 14 pages on the next draft. What is interesting about these pages is that they are raw Cash and Epps. This is truly our First Complete Draft of WHEREABOUTS.

Scope and Contents 144 pages. This is the First Draft we handed into Producer Joe Wizan. A NOTE ABOUT FIRST DRAFTS: You might ask yourself how all these drafts can be First Drafts. Hollywood is about perception. Sine this movie had not gone into production, the prevailing wisdom was to make this screenplay feel like it was still a “virgin” and was the first draft. It doesn’t look as good as the cover page to say 7th draft. Sort of implies there is a problem with the screenplay. You’ll also notice...