Blog, The Business: November 18, 2009 : 9:49 pm
The End of the Screenwriter
Just read this post about Elizabeth Knox and her unhappy experience with the movie adaptation process. Here’s the article:
Author cried over film of Vintner’s Luck
I don’t want to address the merits of Ms. Knox’s story as I think it’s irrelevant to my point here. My point is: it’s time for the role of a screenwriter to come to an end.
I’m not sure if I have a resounding thesis statement to make, as much as an expression of anger. I’m very tired of the idea that the director’s vision trumps the screenplay. I’m saying this as a director myself. Having a great visual imagination doesn’t qualify you to weigh in on story. Yet it’s not uncommon for a script to be tossed out and completely reworked by a director, sometimes at the last minute, to support their “vision.” Is there any other industry where a leader can come in, completely shred years of work and research, and “follow his vision?”
Something has to change. We already know screenwriters have no power in the industry. It’s gone from a joke to a cliché to a fact of life. Leading with, “I’m a screenwriter” is like saying, “I’m not in charge. I just do the words.”
Screenwriters are so focused on “breaking in” to screenwriting. Dozens of questions about the right formatting, the best techniques, the right way to get an agent. Nobody is asking how to find a decent director for their work, and their career could hinge on that more than anything.
Unless they take responsibility for themselves, learn to direct, and actually create something consumable.
I think screenwriters have to stop being screenwriters. We have to become “people who also write.” We have to stop fighting battles from positions of weakness, and establish ourselves in territory where we have a greater advantage. If that means becoming writer/directors and writer/producers, then so be it.
Do what it takes. Learn the skills you need. Find people to help you. But don’t resign behind the laptop with a cappuccino while a questionably-competent interpreter “finds his vision” amidst the ruins of your life’s work.
Related posts:
- Study Everything
- Pry Yourself from Preproduction
- Read More Screenplays (And How)
- Take The Nicholls Challenge
- NY Times: “Indies Going Solo”
Posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago at 9:49 pm. 2 comments
tags: screenwriting
You can see something very similar in the wrestling world. It is a place where workers are fired because creative has nothing for them. Now, I have worked in the industry and know how things go, but even if I didn’t, I would think that Creative means that they have to be creative. If their department can’t come up with something, you fire Creative. If a director can’t see the vision of the screenplay, then you find someone who does see it.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
For years (as a lowly audience member) I have seethed at posters reading “A [director] Film” as though writing were something any child could do, or as if the director had merely bought a term paper off the internet and filmed it. Yes, filmmaking is a collaborative effort and someone has to be the ringmaster, but unless he or she is doing complete improv, the director’s work is logically subsequent to that of the writer.
I realize that some scripts stink of failure. Very well: fix them. And be explicit–with added writer’s credit–about those who do (and that includes not just “script doctors” but also non-writers who insist on “creative control”; perhaps this will manage to rein in the latter practice).
Naive? Unrealistic? I don’t think so. Among other things, we should allow good writers to receive their due public recognition, and permit bad ones (or superfluous cooks) to get the excoriation they deserve.