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Progress Report - February 25, 2025 - FULL BATCAT DRAFT 1 SCREENPLAY
🕑 Added 2025-02-26 01:40:06 +0000 UTCHello, everyone!
I apologize for being a little late with today's post. The spontaneous decision to release the Bluesky pinups today meant that I wanted to give it a day before making another Patreon post - I hate barraging peoples' inboxes with notifications.
The first draft of the Batcat screenplay draft is finished! Click here to read it!
And boy howdy, is it a doozy. The wildest part is, for as long as it is, I didn't even notice the length - not when I was reading InsideIncognita's original novella-form of the idea, not as I was writing it (other than how long it took me to write, anyways), and not reading it back.
Innie wrote a story that, in my opinion, flows supremely smoothly and kept me wanting to see more with every sequence. As such, somehow, it ended up managing to clock in at 174 shots in the screenplay.
Now, there are some caveats with that metric, and especially with the comparison to the Pharmmetra video. The first caveat is that "shots" is not a standard unit of measurement. There is no predefined length of time to a shot. As a trivial example, consider these two shots in Pharmmetra:
These are both counted equally as 1 shot in the counts, but contribute a very different amount to the overall runtime of the video.
The second caveat is that this is comparing an aggressively edited and rewritten video project (Pharmmetra was rewritten from the ground up something like 4 times, and then the final version heavily edited with roughly half of the originally planned sequences cut from it) to a first-draft straight adaptation from a prose that was explicitly told to not worry itself about length or the constraints of video (I personally prefer having too much and cutting things out, rather than having too little and having to fill things in). Innie and I have yet to take the butcher's cleaver to this screenplay and cut it down to size.
The third caveat is that Innie explicitly wrote this story as a two-parter, and I have adapted it wholesale into a single screenplay. If the screenplay were to be split into the parts she had in mind, then the first part would be 77 shots, and the second part 97 shots - which is actually much more reasonable. Assuming a 1:1 correlation of shot-count to runtime (see caveat 1), 77 shots is almost exactly 75% the count of Pharmmetra, which translates to about 11.5 minutes runtime. And it is much easier to cut 11.5 minutes down to 8 minutes than it is to cut 20+.
All of that being said, Innie hasn't had a chance to go through this screenplay yet and give her thoughts on it. But I have been sharing segments of it with her as I wrote them, and so I am feeling confident that the first few sequences are good to go. As such, I am going to be spending the next 2 weeks putting together the storyboard for it all.
I hope to have at least part 1 ready to share by next week.
Once the storyboard is done, we will finally be able to see how long the fucker runs - and begin to cut it down to size.
Just looking at how much content there is in this beastie, I really don't think we will be able to get both parts down to a sum 8 minutes. I'll be surprised if the full package clocks in under 20 unedited, truthfully.
I told Innie when I started adapting that, all things being equal, I don't want to split it. The first part has some fantastic sequences and really reflects why she and I get along so well - she has the same burning desire to intimately interweave porn and plot, to tightly bind sex and story together, that I do. And the main sex sequence in part 1 definitely exemplifies that. And at the same time, the second part has some fantastic power-dynamic shifting and power-play, wrapped in a very tantalizing bondage sequence, which are all things that particularly tickle my fancy and I try to implement in my projects whenever I can.
But all things are not equal, and I will likely end up splitting the project. In the event that is what happens, then once part 1 releases, I will leave it up to the masses to decide what to do with part 2: immediately begin production (since all the preproduction would be done at that point, it'd start up a lot faster) and release the parts back-to-back; vary things a bit and do a few shorts with other characters before returning to it next year; or putting it on the shelf indefinitely due to a lack of interest.
At any rate, we're not ready to make those decisions yet. Before I end this post, I want to briefly demonstrate the similarities and differences between Innie's original prose and my screenplay adaptation. There are a lot of mechanisms that are unique to prose, like internal thought and narrative metaphor, that simply do not translate to the audio-visual medium of film. Distilling the essence of those mechanisms and finding a way to visualize them was an interesting experience, to be sure.
Innie's Original Prose:
Selina long accepted the idea that people did not approach her unless they wanted something from her-- a concept she was content to justify her nigh-agoraphobic lifestyle on, at least until her friend Frances goaded her into leaving her comfortable apartment for the quaint coffee shop down the block that morning. Selina hadn't minded the place before-- after all, she'd often delight in seeing the bright-eyed, scantily-clad collegiate girls frequenting the business, along with the equally attractive female baristas serving them. But recently, slews of businessmen caught wind of the shop's typical clientele, and cases of less than savory ogling and harassment soon became the norm-- of which Selina now found herself the recipient.
His cologne announced him unceremoniously, and he stood over her table like a clueless waiter, bragging about himself while propositioning her as she stared out the coffee shop window. Selina didn't catch most of what he said-- only that he was from some investment firm, and that he drove fancy cars, and that she would be one lucky gal to see how big his bank account was. She hadn't bothered to look at him, and eventually he felt compelled to reach over to grab her, but a pale, small hand grabbed him by the wrist.
"You've really gotta learn when to throw in the towel, bud-- if a girl doesn't even look at you after you yap at her for 30 seconds, you gotta just walk away."
The Screenplay Adaptation:
(01; A street-view shot of a boutique coffee shop sitting on a four-way intersection. The streets are old and worn, a reflection of the weary city. A young woman wearing nothing but a two-piece bikini and high-heel shoes shifts her weight eagerly on the street corner, holding a large sign over her head with "BIKINI CAR WASH" written on it in bright, bubbly 60s-styled text. The camera's focus is intently on her, with everything else blurred. After a few moments, the camera focus shifts to the coffee shop window - and of Selina, in her smart street attire, sitting by the window, idly sipping from her coffee cup, eyes fixed squarely on the young woman, unblinking. Just inside the coffee shop, beside her table, stands a man in a sharp navy-blue suit, gesticulating as he speaks inaudibly.)
(02; A close-up of Selina as she openly watches the woman on the street outside. The man's voice drips with sleazy self-assurance as he bullishly attempts to woo Selina.)
MAN (bragging openly): "Of course, I knew they were going to make it big. Tech start-ups are easy investments. Netted me an easy six-figure bonus."
(03; An over-the-shoulder shot behind Selina, following her eyeline to fix squarely on the woman outside. The camera focus is minimal, so the full scene is equally in focus.)
MAN (bragging openly): "I figured, what the hell, I have the garage space. Why NOT get a Ferrari, to go along with the Porsche? I'm telling you, you would be one lucky gal..."
The camera's focus shifts hard on the bikini-clad woman, blurring everything else to near-unrecognizability. The man's voice becomes muffled and muted as the camera focuses. It lingers for several seconds.
(04; An upward-facing shot, positioned from the coffee shop table, composed such that the man is pushing up against the edge of the frame. Selina still is focused intently out the window.)
MAN (overflowing with confidence): "Anyways, I figured I'd offer you a ride, let you pop the passenger seat's cherry. Maybe offer you a different ride, too--"
He reaches out to put a hand on SELINA's shoulder, but is intercepted mid-air by another hand darting out of frame to grab his wrist; the man starts as he turns, wide-eyed, toward this third actor
(05; A waist-up shot of Barbara firmly grasping the man's wrist, as she glares daggers into him. Her oversized Gotham University sweater obfuscated her otherwise slim frame, and her thick-rimmed glasses belied the fierce intensity of her gritty voice as she admonished the slickster. Selina is still looking out the window.)
BARBARA (coldly, firmly): "Learn to take a hint, buddy."
SELINA turns immediately at the sound of BARBARA's voice. She looks up intently at BARBARA.
(06; A close-up of Selina as she watches Barbara intently. She takes an idle sip from her coffee mid-sentence.)
BARBARA (coldly, firmly): "If a girl doesn't even look your way after running your mouth for 30 straight seconds..."
(07; A high-angle close-up of Barbara, from Selina's POV, as she continues to berate the man.)
BARBARA (coldly, firmly): "...then she's clearly not interested. Take a hike."
Attached to the bottom of this post, I've actually included a full comparison of the first scene, the coffee shop. It has the entirety of Innie's prose of the scene, followed by the screenplay for that scene. Just so you can see what all was kept in the adaptation, what all was changed, and how I chose to adapt some of the more abstract machinations in the prose.
All of that being said, I am really excited to put this project together! I'm a bit intimidated at how badly we're going to have to butcher it, but I can't wait to see it come to life!
That's all for now, and until next time, everyone!
Comments
Jdub
My apologies if I have missed the answer to my question elsewhere, but what has become of BSE4?
Lord Aardvark
Ooh, we get a capital N this time. Does that mean this update is more nice than usual?
empheezie
Nice
