The only one who has seen the movie
Last week, I participated in a screenwriting panel with many estimable writers at which the topic of idiotic studio notes came up. Robin Swicord said something that reframed the issue in a very helpful way:
You have to remember that as the screenwriter, you’re the only person in the room who has actually seen the movie. You’ve seen the locations in your head. You’ve heard the music. So everyone else is trying to catch up with you, and you need to help them.
I’m paraphrasing a bit — none of this was recorded. But it’s such a smart observation that I didn’t want it to slip by undocumented.
Most of my job as a screenwriter is helping other people see the movie in my head. Obviously, the screenplay is a lot of that, but all the conversations that go along with it are often just as important.
Filed under: Film Industry, Producers, Psych 101, QandA, WGA
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June 15th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
That’s excellent. The notion that you’re describing something you saw to someone who wasn’t there is old hat for fiction, but the way that applies to the many different artists that make a film is pretty profoundly different, isn’t it? The screenwriter has to not only describe a movie to others (and who enjoys having a movie described to them instead of seeing it, normally?) but facilitate their connection to it. It’s not just, “Here’s what I saw,” but, “Here’s what you can see if you’ll come with me.”
Or maybe I’m crazy.
This is an area where I find my game-writing experience has been helpful: crafting descriptions that help imaginations overlap without removing all the room listeners/readers have to implicitly imagine details that make them connect personally with the work. Collaborative fiction often creates situations where one writer or player implies something that someone else detects, makes manifest, and then thinks of as theirs — and part of good collaboration is knowing when to let go of your beautiful implication so someone else can work with it as a solid thing.
I’m mouthy today.
June 15th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
I don’t know much about screenwriting, I write novels, but I actually see everything I write as a movie in my head. That’s why my descriptions are sometimes a little too deliberate. And I sit there thinking “How do I describe this facial expression so that other people see it too?” I imagine it’s way harder for you, since you don’t have the benefit of spending as much paper space on it as you wish.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
sorry about the off topic:
I wanted to suggest this website http://www.charlierose.com/view/collection/9534?pagenum=2
they have several interviews with writers, I thought it may be of interest.
best regards y
June 15th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
I think anyone who reads a script has “seen the movie,” in their own mind. And has an idea of what they think it looks like or should look and be like. So when they give notes, I think they’re just stating stuff that they want to see more of and/or don’t want to see. Trying to mold it into how they want it to be or think it should be.
So how can a screenwriter get others to follow them or get on board with something when they have to constantly change it as they go along?
June 15th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
In that sense, the notes sort of inform you where you failed at conveying your vision, because the other party didn’t “get it.”
On the other hand, I’ve always felt there are certain people who give notes because they feel like they’re obligated to say something constructive or critical, as if they’re not allowed to like everything. So they latch onto something random and disagree with it for the sake of disagreeing with it.
The question becomes: how do you distinguish honest disagreement from obligatory disagreement? How do you distinguish the note that comes from an honest difference of visions from the note born out of an urge to contradict. It’s sort of like the AA credo about changing the things you can, accepting the things you can’t, and having the wisdom to know the difference.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
John,
That’s certainly a great point. Sometimes it can be a real struggle to convey what’s in your head, doubly so if you’re straying from walk-and-talk type stuff.
Of course, one of the benefits of this process is occasionally you also get very positive notes referring to things that aren’t exactly what you intended (I find this comes up from, for instance, a female reader “seeing” the scene from the female lead’s POV rather than from the main male protagonist’s, etc.).
If we can get all the best, compatible parts of the collective films we “see” in understanding the story, that’s the best.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
Being a beginner in screenwriting, that is one of the main things I’ve learnt. In fact a while ago – after reading your posts and watching the tutorial videos here – I remember making the following comment in an online journal we have to keep for my writing class at University:
Probably one of the most important things that I have learnt was the fact that a writer’s job is much more than just churning out a plot – it involves the creation and description of everything that is needed to support, tell and guide a story, helping the audience see that story as effectively as possible.
It’s also one of the reasons I love writing scripts so much. You get to visualise it all before anyone else does!
June 15th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
This is a great observation. And a great step-back for the ego of the creator. Trust is one thing, but I agree, it’s your job to continue to help others see the vision. And hey, if you can inspire them along the way – then you’re great!
June 15th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
This is why a complicated storyline is better communicated with the help of a storyboard. I’ve often wondered why scriptwriters would not use the service of storyboard artists to sell a pitch. It worked for the Wachowski brothers when pitching the Matrix.
John, have you ever used storyboarding? Is this common in film?
June 16th, 2009 at 1:50 am
Seeing the movies in your head first is like owning a big secret you desperately want to share with others ; )
On the other hand… I wouldn’t have told my History teachers about the images in my head I made up to remember the facts in detail, ha ; )
June 16th, 2009 at 10:30 am
My sentiments exactly. I work by closing my eyes and watching the movie in my head and then describing it on paper. Which is WHY I CAN’T understand why hollywood wants to take all the camera directions and action directions out of the spec script format and leave that to the director. To me that is idiotic. You can write a story or you can Create a Movie. If you create a movie you have visions that must be described. Visions, not only dialogue. Can someone explain that to me? It’s probably why so many movies stink because there is no vision, just basic blocks of dialogue etc.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:35 am
“I’ve often wondered why scriptwriters would not use the service of storyboard artists to sell a pitch.”
This phase of “writing” is huge in feature animation, where the gap between the creator or writer’s vision from the page to the screen can often be too large to bridge in such a visual medium.
John, were you involved with the storyboarding process on Corpse Bride?
June 16th, 2009 at 11:38 am
JohnT, no one wants to take the action out of the script. Description is essential. But the job of the writer is to create a world with words, not map out instructions for the camera operator. As a screenwriter, I find it much easier to communicate the look and feel of the story without having to worry about how each shot is framed, and whether the camera is moving or static. I don’t find this a limitation at all–its a relief. If you happen to think that way, then I can understand why you might be frustrated, but it does lead me to suspect you’re more of a director than a writer at heart.
Which actually brings up another question for John A: what percentage of aspiring screenwriters (would you guess) have an actual background in writing? It seems to be a vocation that attracts dreamers from all (even the most unlikely) professions…
June 16th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
An interesting observation, for sure.
Which leads me to remember back to being stuck in some third draft rewrite and wishing, now, that I’d had a better seat.
June 16th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
I appreciate the responses. All I know is that I can kick back and close my eyes and watch the movie in my head. Especially if it’s a suspense type action such as a man examining a screwdriver intently as the the camera tilts back to reveal a man hanging above him in the ceiling for example… if I see that vision then that has to be relayed. To say the man looks at a screwdriver as another man hangs above him is a circumstance…not moving pictures. We are creating moving pictures….not a song and not a novel. Seems to me you have to describe the pictures that you see that are then supported by the dialogue.
Another for instance is if you are looking at a scene such as the earth and then the camera zooms in until you see the head of a dime and then look up to see a man staring back. That is a series of pictures described. It’s impossible to create a visual medium without relaying it.
There is no other art form so disconnected. Imagine a songwriter trying to convey a song without using music. Only song and words but no tune. That’s for the director to come up with. Absurd in my opinion.
Napoleon Dynamite would never have been the great movie it was if the director didn’t give line readings of how the characters were to sound and translate his vision. To me it’s time for writers to have a vision and be allowed to convey the vision while any director can either use it or not. It’s the writers vision if they think in visions.
Just my opinion. yours?
June 16th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
I always see the whole movie. And when I pitch it to industry, potential audience, I feel my goal is to get people to see, hear, experience the movie in my pitch.
Its a good feeling when people say “my heart is pumping” just as you describe it! I pitched to some film students last year that I wanted to use.
Someone shot my pitch, and then I cut it together with some of the actual scenes I later shot. If nanybody is interested, you can see the pitch here. First video. http://www.missionx.co.uk/#/video/4529835520
I never plug my film on peoples blogs aggresively like this, so if you don’t accept, no problem. I did really just wanted to show me “pitching”, then seeing the actual footage a year later that the students helped me shoot.
cheers David
June 16th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Giving a performer line readings is best when you’re working with non-actors. If you have an actor with a lot of skill and experience, they will more than likely just be annoyed by it. If you put too many PAN TOS: and ZOOM OUTS: in your script, you risk the director feeling like you are treating him as an amateur that can’t be trusted to make these decisions. Maybe this is just ego, and maybe saying, “you can either use it or not,” should make everything all better.
June 16th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Exactly. The issue that writers have to deal with is actually seeing the movie and experiencing the nuances. Screenwriting is the most frustrating career as it forces you to be so abstract yet so concrete that you can not only see the movie but explain the importance of scenes in such a way that the “note-giver” thinks it was their idea.
Quite a set of skills. I should have smashed myself in the head.
June 16th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
This is definitely something I had to learn the hard way. I find it’s especially an issue when pitching a new idea to someone. If I get too focused on the story and don’t convey the mood or feel I’m envisioning as well (much more difficult), the recipient can get a very different impression of my movie than what I had in mind.
June 16th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
There’s a parallel between screenwriting and songwriting. Because of the availability of recording tools such as GarageBand, songwriters are expected to have quality mp3s of their creation to pitch to artists and publishing companies. There’s so much competition that in the end, the quality is so high that producers just “follow the demo” when recording because they don’t want to screw with something that works.
It dawn on me that we may need tools to help screenwriters communicate their vision visually. Does something like this exist already? I know about some 3d storyboarding software, but the results are very crude and distracting. Nothing like a real had-drawn storyboard… Maybe some web tool taking scrippets as input…
John, don’t you write software?
June 16th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
JohnT: Hmm. I am loathe to post any kind of explicit writing opinion/advice on the blog of a much more accomplished writer than myself, so I considered just linking off here to a blog entry that might be of interest. But in the end it seems the discussion is of “seeing the movie in one’s head” and how to communicate that vision, so here goes.
Re: Camera direction – avoid it. Not acceptable unless it’s a shooting script (already sold, or you’re writing it to shoot).
“But there are certain angles or times for closeups that sell the action.” Maybe, but ultimately it’s really up to the director.
HOWEVER – You can infer certain kinds of shots, to enhance the reading experience, based on sentence construction within your left-margin. For instance:
“A man walks across a broad empty parking lot, carrying a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. His upper lip sweats.”
That gives you a wide shot, maybe a medium, an insert, and an ECU (Extreme Close Up) all implied by virtue of the order of the elements and their construction.
“A man walks across a broad empty parking lot” infers we can see the man, the lot, and the fact that it’s broad and empty — we’ve established with a wide shot.
Then we add a medium shot — “carrying a briefcase”
An insert — “handcuffed to his wrist”
And an ECU — “His upper lip sweats.”
So you get to infer your desired shots, and their order, without explicitly offending a (professional) reader by including overt camera direction in a spec script.
An example from my current project: People climbing out of a basement after surviving a fire. I wanted to open the scene with a wide shot, showing the burned out cabin, and juxtapose the beautiful morning light and chirping birds with the devastation; then move in to the cellar doors opening, and finally the people exiting.
“Morning light in shafts through the trees, birds twittering over the blackened, smoldering wreckage of the cabin, burned to the ground.
At the back of the stone foundation, singed brush heaves as the twin cellar doors fold outwards. Simon pokes his head out, surveys the scene, listening.
He climbs into the morning air, gestures the others to follow. Bethany and Sheila emerge, bleary eyed, blankets around their shoulders.”
Sorry to go on so long. There are creative ways to address your desire to direct the readers attention and paint a picture without camera direction.
My two cents. :)
June 17th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Why is it such an affront to include the odd note of camera direction, though? Why isn’t the director’s authority assumed to include the ability to ignore such shorthand notions from the expedition member who has laid eyes on the film already?
I’m genuinely curious, anthropologically, where this comes from — I get that it is the way of the land, but not how it came to be. Is there a root tale of a writer being lambasted for including such things that I just haven’t been told?
June 17th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
“Why isn’t the director’s authority assumed to include the ability to ignore such shorthand notions…?”
Presuming that it’s spec scripts we’re talking about, I’d wager that it’s not the director’s authority at question. It’s the reader at the prodco or agency who’s slogging through hundreds of scripts a week, long before it ever gets to a director, and looking for any reason to toss it and move on to the next one… and not only is reading the camera direction tiresome (slows the pace of the read, takes one out of the moment) but we all know it’s a collaborative artform…. the writer is likely not involved in production, the director / DP / editor are going to make those choices, and the screenwriter must show that s/he’s a team player who isn’t trying to dictate from the page (there are after all many right cuts/frames/moves for any shot which are the director’s stylistic fingerprint to leave).
Again, my .02.
June 17th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
In my opinion that’s why most movies STINK. Because nobody creates them. It’s like that game gossip where an idea is expressed and whispered to another’s ear and so on and by the time that happens 15 times it’s an entirely different phrase. The method of creating a movie but don’t talk about the pictures or the shot ever is absurd. Maybe stories are created by some writers and the visuals are left to the “director” but like I said…that’s like writing lyrics and leaving the tune to the next guy. It’s not real song creation. The most frustrated of the writers probably just say heck with it and become directors of their own projects… and therefore what have been the best movies through time? by writer/creator/directors. The entire system is skewed. at least in music a demo can be made to shop the song.
June 18th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Not only are you the only person who has seen the movie… an even more powerful perspective is you being the only person who had DIRECTED the movie. Sure, we shouldn’t direct the film on the page, but you absolutely should direct it in your mind. Which means — lights, camera, action, music, wardrobe and the general “look and feel” of the place. This will impart a nuance and a sensibility that will make the story come alive beyond the words.
June 18th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
JohnT has inspired me! I’m going to say “heck with it” and direct my own script… with $5 million of JohnT’s money.
Actually, he’s not entirely wrong. But the real problem isn’t between writer and director, it’s the filmmaker(s)/producer/studio MATCH MADE IN HELL. How anything survives this process in any coherent shape (and not much does) is a miracle. You want to know why everything sucks? Come to a post-production meeting on a studio lot.
June 18th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Ditto Shmopeless. All we have control over is our work. All control ends once we hit the SEND button (remember envelopes?). If we can focus there, the rest will make us crazy at a much slower pace.
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Thanks for sharing this note. Such a simple, but very smart point. It helps to know this, and also to consider, perhaps, how this insight translates into other areas of life.