“Boscutti’s Steve Jobs” Test Scene 1 Conference

You know that scene that’s rolling around in your head?

That odd setting? Those half-formed characters? Bites of dialogue?

Get it down on paper or pixels. Sketch (or skeetch) it out. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Doesn’t need a neat twist or sting in the tail.

You’re looking for ideas, themes, motifs, colors. Moments and mannerisms that reveal the larger story.

Like the first test scene below for the screenplay I’m writing on Steve Jobs.

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“BOSCUTTI’S STEVE JOBS” TEST SCENE 1 CONFERENCE

2007 – TED CONFERENCE – DAY

JOHN MAEDA, 41, is backstage of the auditorium. About to deliver a presentation on designing for simplicity. Japanese-American, short cropped black hair. Spry, a little intense. Sombre gray collarless shirt, black trousers, black jacket. Thin metal-framed glasses.

Maeda is deep in conversation with a YOUNG TECHNICIAN who’s holding a white Apple iPod.

MAEDA
What Steve Jobs has done is prove that at a technology company, you don’t need everyone to get it.

FLOOR MANAGER rushes past, clipboard in hand. Maeda holds up one index finger.

MAEDA
You need one person to get it. One. It’s not a democratic model – it’s a model based on convergence. And convergence is not something you can make other people understand. You either understand it or you don’t.

YOUNG TECHNICIAN
And Steve Jobs understands that?

MAEDA
Better than anyone ever has. I have a lot of companies call me and say, ‘We want to make another iPod.’ Meaning they want it to be white. Meaning they want something that does this and this, and looks something like an iPod.

Maeda shakes his head.

MAEDA
But that’s not how it works.

He points to the iPod in the Young Technician’s hand.

MAEDA
The iPod looks the way it does because of what’s inside. And you can’t see that. Everyone’s like, ‘Steve Jobs is all about nice-looking hardware.’ No. He’s all about the software.

Maeda smiles.

MAEDA
He can see software – that’s his gift. It’s tangible to him. He’s all about the invisible. He’s all about making the invisible visible, about making people see what he sees.

Young Technician looks at the iPod in his hand.

MAEDA
Apple products look a certain way because they have to. That’s what’s meant by design.

YOUNG TECHNICIAN
But Steve Jobs is no designer.

MAEDA
No, and he’s no software engineer. But he’s the one who mediates between them, the one who knows the place where the visible and the invisible meet is also the place where we go to meet both.

Floor Manager points Maeda to the stage entrance.

MAEDA
He’s the one who knows how human that place is.

Maeda smiles and heads to the stage entrance.

MAEDA
He’s the one who makes sure it stays human.

Sounds of opening applause as the audience welcomes him on stage.