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Part 11: The Rough Draft

Yes, this is the real, unedited rough draft. At WIRED, we call this an 00. A few words about it from Jason Tanz:

Filing a rough draft always makes me a little queasy, and this one was no exception. I always feel the urge to write a note to my editor explaining the choices I made, stuff to look out for, etc., but usually am able to resist -- really, the editor should be coming to this blind, like any reader would. But for the sake of transparency, and if you'll pardon a little (more) self-indulgence, here are a few of the elements that gave me the most trouble as I tried to write this thing:

1. Making Kaufman work for our magazine -- I live in fear of my editors reading this story and asking "What does this guy have to do with Wired?" Early on, I tried to focus on logic, mathematics, and paradoxes in Kaufman's films, as a way of answering that question before it's asked. We'll see if it works.

2. Striking the right balance -- To be honest, I'm an unabashed Kaufman fan. I also quite liked Synecdoche -- perhaps more than the average moviegoer would. (I've spoken to several who weren't as crazy about it, and a few who were.) I didn't want my fanboysihness to override the story; at the same time, there's an equally pernicious impulse to dump on something just to prove that you AREN'T a fanboy, and I didn't want to fall into that trap either. In the end, I decided that my own opinions about the movie didn't matter; the point is that the reception has been mixed, and Kaufman himself is quite openly anxious about the movie's prospects. That's the story, regardless of what I think.

3. Getting just a little clever -- Kaufman writes (sometimes) about the process of writing. So there was a temptation to do the same within the text of this piece. (To see how obnoxious that could have been, check out my pitch, which succumbed completely to this temptation.) Nancy agreed that I should write this fairly straight. But at the same time, circularity and
recursion were themes that I was addressing in the piece, and I tried to subtlely add a few recursive elements in the draft. It's hard to know when you're beating readers over the head, or when you're being so subtle that 99% will miss it entirely. I still have doubts about the "one of these sentences is false" intro, but left it in for now.

OK, enough yammering. Here's the damn draft. DISCLAIMER: THIS IS A FIRST DRAFT. IT HAS NOT BEEN FACT-CHECKED OR COPY-EDITED, SO MAY/PROBABLY DOES CONTAIN FACTUAL ERRORS, TYPOS, AND OTHER MISTAKES.

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Part 9: The Interview, Writing, and So Forth

Jason interviewed Charlie on August 13. The bad news: We were wrong about the edit suite scene; he wasn't actually doing anything for Jason to observe. But he did invite Jason to join him at the Toronto Film Festival in early September. This was after the magazine's story deadline, but the opportunity to get more access to Kaufman was too good to pass up, so Jason started working on a draft, leaving spaces to fill with Toronto reporting after more time with Charlie.
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