Fal-net > Tierra Del Fuego / Old Drafts

The Old Drafts

While writing Tierra Del Fuego over the course of several years, Michael discovered that the story was becoming too big for a two-hour-plus screenplay. Several characters were originally part of the story and were pitched as the character of Julian Crisp was rounded and defined.

Some of the characters were his ex-girlfriend, a college professor that Julian remained friends with, and a student of the professor that Julian dated. More was made of his extreme environmental and animal rights beliefs, and the setting was different. While it's now set in a large, anonymous northeastern U.S. city, Tierra was originally set in ritzy Palm Beach, Florida.

So, for the curious reader, various old drafts (finished and unfinished) are on this site. They're not required reading by any means, but if someone, somewhere, finds them interesting, then it was worth collating them and placing them on-line.

Many of these discarded ideas will be reused in Tierra Del Fuego II: From the Sun, whereas some will be forgotten. This is their memorial. More will be added in the future, but for now, happy reading!

Original prose draft
Originally started in March 1996, the story was told in prose format, not as a script, but Michael soon discarded that idea and changed it to be a screenplay.
August 1996 scene list
Scene list for the first two acts, dated 11 August 1996.
The original 65 pages *
By 2 September 1996, the first 65 or so pages were finished and collated into a draft. There's a lot that was removed from the story at this point. Around this time, Michael decided to expand the story of Tierra Del Fuego from one story to three: a trilogy of films.

Currently (Spring 2001), Michael is working on the second film in the trilogy, Tierra Del Fuego II: From the Sun. Some of the characters and plot points that were deleted at this point will be used in the sequel.
September 1996 plot notes *
Summary of the script to that point; contains spoilers of the ending.
October 1996 summary
On 24 October 1996, Michael wrote a one page summary of the screenplay. Compare that with the current summary.
Deleted original intro scene *
On 13 December 1996, Michael wrote a new intro scene to the script, which started to give the backstory of Julian, his mother, and The Preacher. It was almost immediately discarded, and will almost definitely be used in From the Sun.
December 1996 scene list *
After deciding to cut the backstory of Julian's mother, to be reused in From the Sun, a new scene list was written on 30 December 1996.
January 1997 scene chart *
In early January 1997, Michael took the then-current scene list and created a chart to help him keep track of the characters and motivations in the story.
First draft (Blue) *
On 21 April 1997, the first draft of Tierra Del Fuego was completed. There were many changes to this draft from the December one.

After completing it, Michael handed the Blue draft out to a lot of people, and got a lot of feedback on it. Surprisingly, some of it was good. He then started work on the second draft....
Notes for Green draft
In May 1997, Michael made some notes on what changes to make for the second draft. Most of the suggestions on this page are from Glen Eric Reed, the other half of Falstaff Productions.
Second draft (Green) *
On 25 January 1999, the second draft of Tierra Del Fuego was completed. The most significant changes for this draft were making Julian more of a loner, and also re-introducing Rose as a young friend of his, rather than as a stranger.

* Adobe PDF files. You will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view them.