I'm the writer and director of the Farewell, and today we're gonna look at a couple drafts of the script you probably don't want.

Theo scene we're gonna look at today is a scene that takes place in a wedding photography studio between Billy and 99 which is Chinese for grandmother and in the background, the bride and groom are having their photograph taken.

One of the main things we wanted to establish was the relationship between Billy and her grandmother.

Nine I and, you know, at the same time, we wanted it to be really visual, even though it's a dialogue heavy scene.

I wanted to make sure that we were always looking at something interesting on screen and reminded that there is a wedding that is supposed to be the focus of the story, even though, for Billy, her mind is clearly on the impending loss of her grandmother.

Here is a version of the Chinese script.

I speak both languages, and I understand both languages, but I don't write or read Chinese, so I don't really know what any of this says, but as you can tell, the formatting is very different.

Instead, of having this indented dialogue that is traditional for American or Western scripts.

I guess the dialogue here is written more like in prose.

This says 99 that I know.

And then here is her dialogue I'm seeing now that they've retained the brackets, meaning that this is in Chinese.

I think the biggest challenge in writing a bilingual script for me what I hear in my head is not what I have the ability to write down on the page.

I hear it in my head and Chinese, and I'm translating it and writing it down in English.

And then the translator would have to take this English and translate it to Chinese.

My mom, she did a lot of work with me on this where she would read through the Chinese dialogue and asked me, Is this what you heard in your head?

Or she would say It sounds very formal.

This doesn't seem like the way that nigh nigh speaks to you.

We would make corrections that way.

I would tell her what I actually heard, and then she would go into the document and change it.

We had professional translators and they had their versions And then I would have this side version from my mother.

I had no way of distinguishing between them.

I think that thes folded lines are the scene headings.

This is Billy here.

This is no no nanny that's in English.

It's phonetically spelled out.

I mean, you can see this was very challenging for me because I don't read Chinese.

But this was given to the actors to read so that we could cast them.

I couldn't correct it on the page.

I had to correct it once I heard them say it at a table, read or even on set.

So before we started developing the script, I actually did an episode of this American life.

So for a long time, I just called it untitled.

Ta l this American Life project.

I originally wrote all of the Chinese dialogue in I talents.

You'll see and later drafts that I actually changed it to brackets because the italics air a little bit confusing.

I'm kind of o C.

D.

So I really like consistency throughout a script.

So it just became easier to create brackets around any dialogue that is meant to be smoking in Mandarin.

The name of the main character.

Funny coincidence was Nora and I don't remember why I named her Nora, and this was way before I cast Aqua Fina, and that was a very weird coincidence.

I think that the main reason I changed the name to Billy was because Nora is a difficult name to pronounce in Chinese.

And so I wanted to have a name that sounded the same in English as in Chinese.

It would.

So this is the final shooting scripts in the earlier drafts.

A lot of these conversations happened in different scenes.

Nine.

I had multiple conversations with Billy, you know, here you see, it's nine Eyes Apartment and then another conversation happens in a car.

In the final film, I convinced all of the conversations that Billy and Nine I have in tow one scene at a wedding studio, and this is the main scene that you have the dialogue between nine I and Billy.

This is nine.

I complaining about the wife in this first draft, she says.

What is wrong with this girl?

There's a part of Billy that feels like if she knew why this wedding was put together, she might have a little bit more appreciation, you know, even here, Nora is defending Ami the Bride or Eiko the bride.

Her name also changed at some point.

And then here she Billy says, she seems really sweet.

So that was one thing that I kept the same from the first draft.

The final shooting script was always nine eyes Dissatisfaction in this first draft.

Nine hotels.

Billy, when you were little, you were so generous.

You haven't been yourself lately, perhaps because of your break up.

There's no longer a break up in the final script, but this stays the same nine.

I says.

When you see people, you should say hello, Auntie.

Hello, Uncle.

Don't be Union Union.

So this is silly child here.

But throughout the movie nine.

I refers to Billy Stupid Child.

It was one of my producers who suggested we translate it to silly child.

Stupid Child seemed very harsh in the context that nine eyes speaking to Billy.

She's saying the word dumb or stupid, but she doesn't really mean it.

And actually Shaft, she uses shot to refer Thio Niko, the Japanese bride.

It's on Lee for me, within context of how my grandmother is saying that word.

Do I not take offense to it?

I wanted to give the audience that same moment of being a little jolted by it, but then relearning the word through the context.

So this is a really big moment that's been in every single draft from tthe e inception of the scripts where nice is gonna meet you.

Other drafts of the script.

This line was sort of interspersed in between other dialogue.

Here in the final shooting script, we end the scene with it, and I didn't really right.

You know the reaction.

Because I knew that I was gonna shoot the reaction of Billy and that we were really gonna linger on her face for a significant be as a reaction to nine.

I saying this because, of course, she knows that that day may never come.