Recording ideas - literally
When I first starting having script ideas, when I was sixteen, I bought a microcassette audio recorder. This way I could record ideas while I was driving (putting a piece of paper against the steering wheel and taking notes proved too dangerous) and as I was falling asleep.
Paper, clearly, was superior when writing ideas in class; it looks like you’re studiously taking notes, whereas loudly dictating plot developments into an audio recorder about an oppressed kid in a futuristic totalitarian school doesn’t.
I’ve never gone back and listened to my audio ideas, however, and the idea of finding these tapes and transcribing them now seems daunting. With this blog, I have an excuse, but I’m thinking it will be more of a hassle than copying from paper scraps.
For one, I can only transcribe when nobody else is around. Or with headphones, I guess, but I just broke my one-dollar Jet Blue headphones, and won’t be able to get more until my flight to Austin. A worse problem will be having to keep stopping and rewinding and replaying the tapes, which was always the most annoying aspect of interviewing low level celebrities for my old student newspaper.
Then again, at least I don’t have to worry about not being able to read my old handwriting. And it’ll be a little nostalgic getting to hear my sleepy 16 year-old voice spouting off bad ideas.
Paper or audio tape? You decide.
6 years ago