Package deal

[alexwhitmer]

How many times have I heard fellow writers boast that we and our precious scripts are the most important part of the filmmaking process? I, as a writer, strongly disagree.

The script is merely one part of the whole, and no film succeeds without all parts working in perfect unison - like a finely tuned machine. From initial writing to final cut, any script, no matter how masterfully written (mine!), can end up either a Mercedes or a Yugo, depending on how all the other parts are assembled and utilized.

It's a package deal.

Bad performances, bad directing, bad interpretation, bad lighting and editing can all drag a good script down. Conversely, excellent performances and directing, etc., can salvage a ho-hum script - in theory anyways.

There is a reason the Oscars and Golden Globes save Best Picture and Best Performances for last: show those first, and I'm guessing 80% of the television audience (and maybe some of the on-sight audiences as well) will not be sticking around to see best editing, best musical score, best screenplay, best fx, costumes, make up, cinematography, etc. That's all the back-of-the-house mechanics that make the on-screen experience what it is. I mean, what's the first thing we look for when buying a new car or home? That first visual experience. The supporting amenities we can read up on later in a pamphlet.

No, sorry fellow writers, we don't own the show. We are an integral part of a whole, right down to the catering and cleaning crews. Get used to it.


I will argue, however, that starting off with a brilliant script is a damn good idea. Just don't F it up!!

 

[Erik Franzén]

Thanks for saying what I always wanted to say but couldn't formulate! There is a lot of truth to this, and I think one reason a lot of people don't want to stand up and face it is, well, because they have a vested interest in not believing it. After all, if those things suddenly matter a whole lot then a good script isn't enough - and that could have...implications. :emote_22_yikes:

 

[David Rasberry]

Thanks for saying what I always wanted to say but couldn't formulate!

He He, the lady definitely has a way with words.:thumbsup:

 

[Dustin Cross]

Sure, a film is a sum of its parts, but the script is the foundation. As the saying goes, you can make a bad movie from a great script, but you can't make a great movie from a bad script.


Dusty

 

[Emanuel A.]

(...) As the saying goes, you can make a bad movie from a great script, but you can't make a great movie from a bad script.


Dusty

Are you sure? Well, the 'Nouvelle Vague' moviemakers might disagree with you... LOL

 

[Randall Nott]

...no film succeeds without all parts working in perfect unison - like a finely tuned machine

That sounds very idealistic from one who's "hanging their head in despair." A production that's like a finely tuned machine is a very rare thing indeed. I think most successful films are a matter of persistence over an inhererntly flawed process; finely kludged machines.

...fellow writers boast that we and our precious scripts are the most important part...

We must hang out with different writer types. Most I know are generous introverts looking for a little affirmation.

...any script, no matter how masterfully written (mine!)

:laugh: "My best measure of your intelligence is how much you agree with me." --Art Pearl

No, sorry fellow writers, we don't own the show.

Literally. Maybe your writer friends are confusing "written by" with Authorship. Once you sell a screenplay, Authorship is transferred to the studio or production company. Anything you have to say at that point is mostly a suggestion. If you want to retain Authorship, write for the stage. (You know, where all the money is.) In that medium, the playwright still has the final word.

We are an integral part of a whole, right down to the catering and cleaning crews.

In a very real sense, writers are part of the cleaning crew. Especially when you see more "and's" then "&'s" in the screenplay credits.

And as one who has still catered more films than I have written, when people start to get nervous on a set about how a production is going, everyone wants to know what the caterer thinks.

 

[David Battistella]

As my writing mentor often states:

"Scripts are never completed, they are just abandoned to production."

This said, a writer, writes. While I am not trying to simplify the experience I have found with writing, editing or directing, that which we hold on to the most is the first thing we should consider letting go.

To want to control a film script after it is in production or imagine that it is not being done correctly should point squarely to one's own ego. Why not go the other way and see how much all of those other departments add to the script and the creative process.

Thinking we own anything can lead us down a dangerous path. I think of scripts more as raising a child that will one day stand on it's own with the help of many influences. I can be respectful of all of those parts.

David

 

[Vladimir Cassel]

The script is the blueprint all others follow. Its theme and conflicts are the engine of dramatic action that drive the film. Sounds pretty up there in importance to me!

 

[alexwhitmer]

Very up there in importance!

The script needs to attract the funding and talent that will move it from paper to film. It needs to get the people and the process excited enough to believe in it, and to take all the needed risks to move it forward. No script, no film.

But, like a blueprint, it is indeed only paper, albeit important paper. What happens next is the other really important part.

And the next, and the next ...

 

[Vladimir Cassel]

Very up there in importance!

The script needs to attract the funding and talent that will move it from paper to film. It needs to get the people and the process excited enough to believe in it, and to take all the needed risks to move it forward. No script, no film.

But, like a blueprint, it is indeed only paper, albeit important paper. What happens next is the other really important part.

And the next, and the next ...

I agree that the script by itself is sort of an intangible thing that relates directly to the emotional faculties, and a great deal of tangible effort goes into the production of a film, but isn't the final product of all that work almost just as intangible as that script in a different way? Sure, there's more sensory information to support the emotions and theme, but are they really all that transformed by the process? I suppose there are extreme examples on both sides of that question, but I managed to answer it myself the first time I read a script that made me cry just as much as the film did.

 

[alexwhitmer]

Great thoughts.

Are they really all that transformed? Maybe not. I would use the word accessible. Or maybe dressed.

As a writer, I very much enjoy reading scripts, and find the information and visuals - when well written - to be very accessible. However, the process - production from performances, locations, lighting, music and so on - make this story and its characters accessible to most everyone. Color, movement, the illusion of depth, voices that fit - or don't fit - the character (Joe Pesci, Sean Connery, Helen Hunt), and, unlike theater, the magic of cinematography that moves one in and out of important vignettes.

Maybe we can call the script the naked body, and the production the art of dressing it. Is it transformed? Do the clothes make the man or woman? Do some filmmakers have a very recognizable style?

I gotta go with yes, and I know very well a script in the hands of three different crews will produce three different interpretations - all more or less recognizable as the same film / screenplay.

a

 

[michael zaletel]

I'd even venture to say that the most important aspect of filmmaking is planning and project management but that's just me.

-michael zaletel

 

[rod bradley]

Another way to look at this is the screenplay is the initial and foundational writing that is constantly being fleshed out by other sorts of "writing" --good actors "write" their characters in gesture, nuance, tone, etc. And in fact the screenplay form necessitates this kind of added "writing" -- and leaves space for that. And a great director is constantly "writing" in subtle and nuanced ways through and with his fellow craftsman/artists/fellows.

A great editor often is a "writer" in the sense of enhancing structure, performance, rhythm. And of course great cinematography "writes" the light and form and composition that gives the story a physical esthetic and nuance. And of course all the other attendant crafts add their touches.

I am always astonished by the films that manage to somehow be more than the sum of their parts. I think that is most often when the foundational writing is solid, brilliant, has a vision, whether it's literally on paper or is primarily in a director/filmmaker's mind. There's a lot of ways up the mountain, although in this country, and especially in Hollywood, the property that becomes the attracting magnet gets a lot of attention -- often, alas, of the wrong sort where rewrites tend to overlook and diminish a wholeness in the original.

We see a lot of films being made that are brilliant in part after part and brilliantly executed, but somehow don't add up to as much as those brilliant parts, never mind more. The old merging of form and content has a lot to do with that. I think if the writing isn't "whole" in some sense to begin with, it seldom inspires great execution and the necessary fleshing out, ie the ultimate completion of the "writing" of the film, if you will.

 

[David Battistella]

What about films that do not have a lot of dialog? I really want to see scripts for "Beseiged" or "Baraka" or more recently, "Lost in Translation".

Let's not forget what goes into a good screenplay. In 90-120 pages all of the detail an nuance of any great novel with all of the restrictions of the screenplay format.

This is why I maintain that the best orginal screenplay (over an adapted one) is much harder to write because all of the work of a "novel" needs to go into it.

David

 

[Vladimir Cassel]

What about films that do not have a lot of dialog? I really want to see scripts for "Beseiged" or "Baraka" or more recently, "Lost in Translation".

Hmmm, good points. Haven't seen Beseiged, but I'd think Baraka couldn't be directly compared in that it's non-narrative and therefore a different beast altogether.

I think that an auteur crafted film like Lost in Translation also runs counter to what the OP suggested in that Sofia Coppola wrote and directed it. She didn't have to give her story up to a different creative mind; she "ran the show" from inception to end.

 

[David Battistella]

I think that an auteur crafted film like Lost in Translation also runs counter to what the OP suggested in that Sofia Coppola wrote and directed it. She didn't have to give her story up to a different creative mind; she "ran the show" from inception to end.

This is really where I hope filmmaking (as an art form not as a hollywood business model) is going.

David

 

[Vladimir Cassel]

This is really where I hope filmmaking (as an art form not as a hollywood business model) is going.

David

I do too in a way, but I'm also reminded of an old Joni Mitchell quote that can be related to filmmaking: "Everybody's a singer-songwriter now, but not everybody should be, not everybody can do all of these things, and yet everybody does. And that's why I think music has gone downhill. It used to take three - a great lyricist and a great musician and then a great singer. Like with Frank [Sinatra], and that's why that stuff is so enduring - because you had three gifted people doing it. Now you've got people, they're not really a great singer or a great writer or a great musician doing it, so the standards have dropped severely."

Not that I think everyone who wants a shot shouldn't have one, and companies like RED are working to make that possible. But I can see studios and producers taking advantage of auteurism where no auteur exists in order to save money that they could have easily parted with to make a higher quality product.

 

[David Battistella]

Good point. I might suggest that music (as is film) is far more accessible and that means far more people have access to great tools to produce it so the "first cull" is never really done.

This also took much of the power away from "the few" and turned it toward "the many". Sure, this will create a sea of shit (as it has in film and music), but it also enables Gems.

I'd say we are farther away from a "community enviroment" in the arts generally, not because of the accessibility, but because more people feel the need to NOT collaborate because the space has gotten smaller and more competitive. I like to cite Hip Hop Music as a great example of community, sharing and culture. Look at how hip hop artists share their records with other artists as a way to support and introduce them.

Studios would be wise to follow this model because it creates a "guild" mentality with mentoring and support for the emerging artist.

Film approach; "here, take a 7D and be the next superstar".

What attracted me to RED was the enthusiasm of film makers who were genuinely excited about creating films. This seems to have faded a bit, but I still want to create a studio that keeps a flow of great film craftspeople working together and learning from each other. It takes a special group of people to make that happen, but it happened all through the 1970's in film.

David


David

 

[alexwhitmer]

I'd even venture to say that the most important aspect of filmmaking is planning and project management but that's just me.

-michael zaletel

Man, this is so true.