Screenplays 101

I wrote a 101 page draft of someone else' script and the producer ultimately didn't like it. I can't just say to a friend, "WTF do you know about screenwriting???" All I can do is follow my gut. The previous draft was generated through the work of two other writers over the course of a couple of years and I found it unprofessional, despite the fact that they were paid for it. I stand by my own re-write, despite the fact that it was don in less than two weeks. If I get cocky I'll feel like the Cleese character in Life of Brian who says, "This is the Messiah and I should know - I've followed a few." You could argue that being able to patiently wade into 100 pages of script and keep it simple and focused isn't enough. I haven't made a living doing it.

Ten years from now I may still be shaking my fist at the sky and defiantly writing away at scripts and rolling a camera and being a writer-director without a career in that vocation. I mean the producer who hasn't written a screenplay and whose writing I haven't seen will now go through it and try to write "more scenes." I have said I don't know what that means because every scene should have a function. So even in the low-budget/ no budget independent world there is the specter of compromise. The only blessing is that if I don't like the final product I don't have to direct it.

A positive by-product is the benefit of writing for long stretches and focusing.
The down side is that this is how I invested my days off during a, say, break from my job. Maybe the exercise pushed me, and maybe it is the idea that someone is waiting to see the script, but then maybe the crash that usually follows a creative exertion is what I have left to apply to my own original scripts. I don't know. I'll keep opening up my files and looking at them as if someone else wrote them so I can be brutal. I don't think reading amateur scripts is as helpful as looking at earlier drafts of produced films I love. Each one of us feels like the misunderstood artist/God who is going to be Charlie Kaufman if people don't "get" what we've written or if it doesn't seem to have obvious plot points on the right pages. But I think that Kaufman has his process and scene for scene his movies remain interesting. The "industry reader" view isn't much help, considering some of the films that get made. You can argue that the recommended screenplay submitted may not resemble the shooting script, but for me most unsold drafts just aren't ready to even be read by me or a screen-writing circle or any reading group. You can have a self-styled guru of screenplay who writes a rambling "personal" script about their own home town and growing up which they value because it is "true." Maybe we should all just tell each other that we are generating too much crap.

I think as long as a script is looked at as a "draft" it's most useful. I dashed something off in under two weeks - clearly a draft - keeping everything that worked and making everything else work as well as it could. And it was literally thrown out a window. By my friend who is the producer. Funny that she actually admitted that. Well, moving on.

I attended a reading of scripts by others last week that had a strange impact on me.
I wanted to sleep. I could hardly keep my eyes open. Actors did the best they could and I tried to be attentive. I'm not sure that process served anything. The comments and questions were very kind. I selfishly thought Gee, how many times have I submitted something to this group and THIS is what makes the grade??? I mean we are all passionate about our labors of love, and that aspect is interesting. But my God I would be cutthroat if I was in a position of choosing. One script was a competent rendering of an historical story that I had no interest in, and the other seemed like a Moonlighting remount. I regret I didn't hear the moderation of the second script because the moderator was the director of Airplane II and it would have been interesting to hear his view on its gags. I did get a glimpse of how time weighs on us though. While I still have a spark of smart-ass I have to get my own scripts all done, and sold or shot. But then this leads to what opportunity? Do you dash off your longest-gestating projects so that you can accept someone else' deadline and take their ideas and "make it work" ?

I used to have this idea that there is an arts community that is supportive, and I lived that way I think for a while. If I like someone's work I'll be a fan. But ultimately this thing we are all in love with is empty. It isn't like a fixed point of reference - like being a Star Wars fan in 1980 where there was only so much Star Wars meant. Instead what we are all connected by is a desire to see our own work flourish and to attain some sort of status legitimately. It's a bit hollow. If it was all about the process of writing there would be more proof-reading and less back seat driving.