[30 days of Happiness]
It had been a week since Aiden got his hands on the script, and when he saw the script score, he had a hunch the movie's plot wasn't going to be good.
His expectations had naturally gone down.
But when he started reading the script, he realised how wrong he was. Rather than disappointing, it was one of the best stories he had read in a while.
[30 days of Happiness] was a movie with many intricate plots hidden in it, but at its core, it was a story of two people's journey.
A journey with a lot of fun moments, enough to get people invested in the story.
The story starts with a narration by the main character, Arthur Reeves, who kick-starts the plot by talking about the best journey of his life, which happened in a summer when he was 17.
On one faithful day, he had met his neighbour, and a popular high school girl, Claire Price and they would spend the whole day together as Claire had just broken up with her boyfriend.
Arthur, who always had a crush on Claire but never told her about it as she was dating another guy, would think of it as the best day of his life, but at the end of the day, Claire would ask him if he wanted to travel the whole Europe with her to find a person.
Claire would then reveal that she had found some love letters addressed to her grandma by a person named 'Charles Dunkin', but the addresses on those letters were always different and were spread all over Europe.
Reading the letters, Claire wanted to meet Charles to learn about her grandma as she passed away when she was a kid. However, Arthur asks her what if Charles is dead too? To this, she replied that she wouldn't find out until she goes to the addresses in the letters.
Like that, a month-long journey would begin, and along the way, both would encounter many weird and funny situations to find Charles.
This was the basic premise of [30 days of Happiness].
The story was something that looked like another romantic comedy focused on teens and young adults, but after going through the whole script, Aiden found out that it was way more than that, and it tells a lot of stuff subtly.
But despite the premise being good, there was obviously a lot missing from the script. It was only because of that that the system had given it a low score.
In the last week, Aiden thought a lot about the script and what it lacked and was even able to get different viewpoints on the plot and how to improve it.
But the problem was how Leo was going to take it.
'If Leo doesn't like my idea, I might lose the role.'
He thought, staring at Leo, who was making a blank face. Aiden knew very well that directors were arrogant and stubborn, especially those who write their own scripts.
Even if he told his points to him, there was a chance Leo wouldn't like them, but he needed to try as if Leo listened, the script score would surely get better.
"What parts are you talking about?" Leo asked, raising an eyebrow. He had thought that Aiden wanted to discuss a scene with him or try to get more perception of a character.
But he had not expected to say that some parts in the script could have been better.
"Well, first of all," Aiden said, trying to be confident. After all, if he hesitated, Leo might not take him seriously. "I think the story could easily be divided into three parts. The first part is the character introduction of Arthur, the second part is the trip to Europe, and the third part is obviously the conclusion."
Leo nodded hearing that and gestured to Aiden to keep talking.
"I think the second part is the soul of the movie with the main plot taking place then, but the conclusion it gives really destroys everything the first part sets."
"What do you mean?" Leo made a confused expression.
"Let me explain. The first part sets up the character of Arthur as a high school student having a crush on his neighbour. But that's just the outer surface. The background of Arthur is way more than that. It's not really simple if one reads the script closely."
"What do you think it is?"
Leo made a curious expression.
"His dreams, his family, his childhood. In these things, only his family is revealed as Claire and Arthur bond on it later in the second part. As for his childhood, we never got a lot of it, so I can just make assumptions. But his dreams are clearly mentioned."
"Yeah." Leo nodded. "He wants to be a singer."
"Yeah, he wants to sing. He writes songs. All this is mentioned, but the plot never really explores all this even when it's technically Arthur's story as he's the narrator telling his own story. In the second part, the plot gets centred around Claire too much, making it seem like Arthur is just a guy obsessed with her and doesn't really have anything to show for himself. Because of that, rather than [30 days of Happiness], the movie could easily be called 'Claire', and it would make more sense."
When Aiden had completed the script, the feeling that the plot forgot Arthur as a character surfaced in his heart.
He had expected it to explore his vulnerabilities and ambitions more. As the audience would volunteer themselves in Arthur's journey, it would make a lot more sense if the plot tries to explore him more.
Otherwise, the audience would feel like Arthur had become a shell of what he was at the beginning of the story, and they would not feel as attached as they should feel.
It was not like Claire was a bad character for Aiden. On the contrary, he felt like she was kind of a trigger for Arthur actually to do something he usually won't do.
She also has a lovely character and her own dreams, which were very well fleshed out, but the plot starts focusing too much on her, making the story seem empty and confused at the core.
That's why, at the end of the story, Claire's journey gives a sense of satisfaction while Arthur doesn't, making the whole story very pointless.
This makes [30 days of Happiness] a mediocre romantic comedy.
When Leo heard Aiden's words, he couldn't help but frown, not because he didn't like them but because the more he thought, the more Aiden's words started making sense.
'Now that I think about it, I made the plot centred around Claire, but at the end, Arthur's character really got sidelined.'
Leo thought in his mind.
He made this mistake because he was very focused on trying to create good chemistry between the characters, but in the middle of it, he forgot to make Arthur stand out.
So, it became like Arthur's whole purpose was Claire, while it was very different for Claire.
"Your perspective is fascinating. I did not notice such a big problem with the plot."
Leo said after a while, and Aiden couldn't help but smile. Thankfully, he had taken it in the way he had expected.
"I'm quite surprised," Leo said, looking seriously at Aiden. "I didn't expect you to analyse the script at this level."
"I did have it for over a week. I was just trying to get into the skin of Arthur, and I realised that he looked more empty as the story went. So, I wanted to talk about those points with you."
"I'm glad you did. I think I will make some more revisions in the script." Leo muttered before hesitating a bit and asking, "Do you have any ideas? I'm very interested in hearing If you have any."
When he heard that, Aiden thought for a moment, it was not easy to suddenly come up with ideas to make the script better. Earlier, his entire focus was to make Leo realise that the script has a lot of weak points.
'How to correct the weak points? Well, the main flaw is the journey of Arthur and him not growing as a character.'
He tried to think from the perspective of Arthur, and suddenly, an idea struck his mind.
"I think it's very simple. You need to give Arthur more motivation than just impressing Claire. At the start of the movie, he's sitting in a sort of an interview and narrating about Claire and the journey, so let's assume he's already a successful singer."
"Yeah." Leo nodded, and Aiden continued.
"But it's never really explained, like his struggles of becoming a singer and other things, so I think this is something that we could take into consideration. Like adding this to why he decided to take the journey with Claire and in the end, we could expand more of it and connect it to the interview."
"That's an interesting idea."
Leo said, pretty happy with what Aiden was saying. For the next 30 minutes, both discussed more ideas about the script and how they could improve it.
At this point, Leo had pretty much already confirmed Aiden as the lead. At that moment, system notifications suddenly appeared in front of Aiden.
[You have delved into another talent and had unlocked the skill 'Writing'.]
[Sub skills like 'Script writing' and 'Novel writing' have been gained.]
[Analysing the skill level of new skills.]
[Congratulations on unlocking a new skill. A lot of experience has been given.]
...
