Ball Don't Lie Screenplay (And Changes Made on the Day)

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Image from 'Ball Don't Lie'

Changes

Some substantial changes were made in the final cut. I found I was easily nearing 6 and a half minutes with everything included (some might say this was poor planning, but I prefer 'overflowing creativity'), and so had some serious editing down to do. 

I first cut the section where Specs demonstrates how him and Bounce are going to make waves in the NBA ('I'ma be crossing up Steph like BAM'), as I felt it didn't really add much to the film, and in many ways just interrupted its pacing. However, cutting this was frustration as me and Specs' actor had attempted on 3 different filming days to make this scene work, and finally had got something passable on the third attempt. 

Still, the difficulty making it work was probably a sign it didn't really have a place in the film, and in the end I think being forced to cut it was beneficial to the pacing as a whole.

I also cut many of the reaction shots and pieces of dialogue in the final game. Again, these added little to the story and ended up largely just being filler, making it an easy decision. The quick, jump cut heavy montage ended up working well with the soundtrack as well, creating an unwavering, punchy scene. 

Other sections were also added while filming. For example, Specs saying, 'Check up bitch!' and the subsequent cutaway. This was improvised by Specs' actor, and although I was sceptical the whole cast agreed it made for a funnier scene.

So I set out to find a way to make it really work, and the cutaway featuring a quizzical Panda in TK Maxx was the result. I have to also credit Specs' actor for the idea that they would be playing fights with the dinosaur toys. In the end, I thought this actually ended up being one of the funnier cut aways in the film, and it also was key to making the audience slightly more dubious about the details of Specs' story.

Originally the game was first to 11, and not 7. This posed many challenges when it came to filming and editing. First of all, we were running out of time to film basketball plays, and we would've need around 15 unique plays to get a game that went to 11. This quickly became unfeasible, as filming was taking longer than expected (a common theme throughout). Changing the game to 7 was beneficial in the long run anyway, as the 4-5 extra buckets needed to get each team to 10-9 would've pushed the film over 5 minutes.

Specs glasses were also originally going to be taped in the framing story. To be completely honest the reason this didn't come to fruition was that the actor forgot to bring the glasses with him to our first day of shooting the framing story, and so we just had to run with it.