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screenwriting / playwriting : page 3.....
| When I was
doing a stage play, Rita Wilson heard about it because it was becoming
a bit of a successful run in Los Angeles, and that's rare. Plays don't
really work there. She came to it and she said right away, "This should
be a movie."
I'd already tried to write the screenplay so I handed it to her like, "Here.. Just read it and maybe you'll like it." That was the screenplay they bought. My actual first draft is what they bought. Isn't that nuts? Nia Vardalos.....[from romanticmovies.about.com interview by Rebecca Murray - July 26, 2002] photo: John Corbett and Nia Vardalos in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" |
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Alan Ball
on writing
"American Beauty"The script for "American Beauty" has roots in his upbringing in a repressed suburbia, Alan Ball says. "My parents were both fairly unhappy people, for a variety of reasons," he says. "I'm a huge freak, and always have been. I spent the first part of my life trying really desperately not to be one, and it was just a waste of time."
One theme of the script is that it's important to live an original life, no matter what your surroundings might be. "I like how it sort of takes place in this generic America," he says. "You never know what the state is where it's set, because the America we live in now is virtually indistinguishable, any region from the other. ...
"It's so weirdly cookie-cutter and conformist, more so than it ever has been. ... We live in a time where there's an alienation factor," Ball continues. "There's a certain disconnection. We don't have any real sense of community anymore. We've become so distanced from Nature and living in Nature. Most of us live in artificial environments and then we go to work in artificial environments and the world becomes something that you see through a window."
It was these ideas that fueled the screenplay to completion, and Ball made no Hollywood compromises along the way. Ball says, "I was thinking, 'I'm not going second guess what's going to sell on the marketplace, I'm not going to try to write what I think will get produced. I'm going write something that I like and that I care about and that I can be passionate about.' I knew that the script would be audacious enough that it would get me some meetings, but I never, ever expected it to get produced, much less by DreamWorks, and much less done right." [CNN.com October 08, 1999]
*American Beauty : The Shooting Script - by Alan Ball*******> related page:**the shadow self
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| It's
a very exciting time for women
writers. In the '80s, when I was growing up, it was the time of
Porky's,
and conventional wisdom was that nobody made movies for girls, because
they didn't impact the box office. Now there are tons of projects aimed
at girls and women. I am excited and feel lucky that has
changed.
People call all the time with projects requiring a strong, cool, independent female protagonist, rather than one with some of the previous limited stereotypes. This a great time for women who want to write about women. Lizzy Weiss- co-writer of movie Blue Crush [WGA.org interview, 2002] |
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| There's still
a prejudice, a bias where women are concerned that you don't hire a
woman
[screenwriter] if you want to do an action picture, which is nonsense.
There's a concern that they're not as marketable. Agents still worry
that
women are better at writing intimate relationship stories or maybe
comedies.
There's no basis to that. There are any number of women in this Guild who are highly capable of writing high-action, intense kinds of movies. If anything, they bring perhaps the added value of being able to weave in the relationship components to those high-action films. Victoria Riskin - Writers Guild of America, west president****[Written By, October 2002] |
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| Right
now I prefer screenwriting
[over playwriting] because of its limitations. I love the confines of
the
Hollywood film structure. I find it very freeing because it allows me
to
write even more far out things, because I know I can always fall back
on
the confines of the three act structure.
The well-made play is a structured art form. But I find it boring because, within the well-made play, there is very little room for moving out of the confines of an old fashioned and almost dead art form. But then I also don't like "downtown" playwriting because it is often manifested as nonsense word salads. A career as a playwright is a hard path to forge. As a woman, it is virtually impossible. The playwriting world is, for the most part, closed to women. Erin Cressida Wilson - screenwriter of Secretary (2002) [moviemaker.com, Summer 2002]
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You have to turn off the critical mind. With my first script I knew nothing, so it was easy to do. My second script I knew next to nothing. Now I have to force myself to be allowed to write a crappy first draft. It's like developing a muscle that lets me do that. Susannah Grant... [screenwriter: Erin Brockovich etc] [from insidefilm.com interview]
*Erin Brockovich: The Shooting Script
related book: Robert W. Firestone, Ph.D. et al. Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice
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.. .. "One of the lessons for all of them is that letting someone into your life to share pain and hardship doesn't make you a burden. /// "We are all parts of Alan's psyche, and the characters are all part of his psyche," writer [and supervising producer] Jill Soloway said. "The teenage girl inside Alan allows us to tell the truth about ourselves. |
.. .. "Male energy is the answer and feminine energy is the question. Almost all of television is about providing the answer in the end. Our shows usually end with a question. It's kind of bittersweet. Sometimes, you might even feel a little sick." from
article
: Feminine side - With three female writers,
|
..related pages :....androgyny / gender.......the shadow self
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Part of writing a play is letting it go. It's both exhilarating and a bit frightening when you turn your script over to the director and actors who will try to make it live. It's a risk -- you hope you'll get lucky. With "Proof," I did. But when I let this play go I had no idea how far it would travel. ... When you let a play go, you also take the risk that it will take on associations for people that you didn't intend and can't account for. That risk is the prerogative of art, however, and of the theater in particular. The theater affects us more directly, and unpredictably, than any of the other arts, because the actors are right there in front of us, creating something new every night.
Something, as [Cambridge mathematician G.H. Hardy] might put it, "Unexpected and inevitable." Which makes it all worth the risk. David Auburn [LA Times, June 4, 2002]
....Proof: A Play
[David Auburn won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2001. "Proof" also won the 2001 Tony Award for best play; Daniel Sullivan won for best director; and Mary-Louise Parker won best actress (play)].
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 |
Real
life is so odd and
so strange, and the writers I like best capture that strangeness in
their
work. Their writing has such humanity. It's not just trying to be
clever
or outrageous; the authors are trying to say something about the human
condition. And that's what I want -- to be moved or affected.
Unfortunately, my work takes away much of the pleasure I get from reading. I always have so many screenplays on my desk, and I have to get through them quickly. There aren't many scripts that I've read over the years and thought, "Well, that's interesting," -- it's got depth and layers and complications. Screenplay writing is seen, sadly, as an easy art. It seems to me that novelists put so much more time into their work, so it doesn't surprise me to find that when I do come across stories that move me, they almost always have been adapted from books. director Gillian Armstrong [latest film: Charlotte Gray] [O Magazine, January 2002] |
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 | I'm
able to take important ideas to a group of people, especially to
oppressed
people. And since I'm black and female, I've got two groups that I can
talk to about that. That ability helps the people in those primary
groups
take more control of their lives, in ways that they probably couldn't
or
wouldn't if they were presented with these ideas in a more
straightforward
way. Pearl
Cleage
from womensenews.org excerpt from interview in book: Women Who Write Plays: Interviews with American Dramatists," by Alexis Greene. [book includes interviews with: Pearl Cleage, Constance Congdon, Kia Corthron, Migdalia Cruz, Elizabeth Egloff, Eve Ensler, The Five Lesbian Brothers, Beth Henley, Tina Howe, Holly Hughes, Jakes-ann Jones, Wendy Kesselman, Emily Mann, Marlane Meyer, Cherrie Moraga, Carmen Rivera, Anna Deavere Smith, Diane Son, Paula Vogel, Naomi Wallace, Cheryl L. West, Elizabeth Wong, Wakako Yamauchi.] |
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| Marti
Noxon says that, as
a writer, the study of film theory [at UC Sant Cruz] was what really
made
a difference to her when she began writing and selling scripts. "That
orientation
gave me the perspective to understand the show and get the job. It
helped
me grasp Buffy's character and to understand the metaphorical context
of
her experiences with these demons."
After ten years in the business, Noxon had heartfelt advice for her audience: "If you get discouraged easily, a career in film and television is not for you. I know a lot of genius writers who could blow me off the screen, but they don't have the doggedness to hang in there. "Look how long it's taken me. A lot of writers my age are just getting their break after ten years of trying." UC Santa Cruz Currents March 6, 2000 // Marti Noxon is executive producer/showrunner of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" ....book:**Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Script Book by Joss Whedon |
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| I
sure can't do anything that's
not worthwhile anymore. If I do, it hurts. Because I know what it's
like
to do something that feels like it needs to be done. ...
There is a learning process that is painful for me sometimes. I feel kinda like I'm at one level on the ladder looking up and trying to throw certain voices or certain experiences that are underrepresented into the fray, and I'm going to take a lot of flack for it, and that's alright. And if I decide that I'm done taking flack for it, or that I've changed my mind, or that I've evolved into a new place in my thinking, then I'll write something new or change the play. But right now, it is energizing. Even the painful stuff is energizing. It's all growth. Sarah Jones [Ms. mag. October/November 2000] - about Women Can't Wait!, a play she wrote and performed for the international women's rights group Equality Now // quotes and photo from Sarah Jones site: sarahjonesonline.com |
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| I don't consider
what I have to be talent. I think I have a very rich life experience,
so
I don't have to invent anything, which makes it easier for me, I
think.
I live a pretty strange life. All I have to do is just sit down and start writing stuff down that I know already... I'm just copying stuff out of my heart, my soul and my brain. Billy Bob Thornton***[from Fade In Magazine - quoted on billybobthornton.net] |
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_______________________
One of the things that makes fiction-writing so compelling to screenwriters
has to do with this childhood desire to be completely and totally seen,
to communicate what's in the writer's mind and heart in the purest, least diluted,
and reinterpreted form.As children, we have an intense need to have our experiences validated, to have our
personal narrative understood and appreciated for its uniqueness. ...Certainly this is an aspect of what is meant when people say that artists are children.
In its most positive light, the saying acknowledges the urge artists have to communicate,
without undue self-consciousness, the dreams and joys and visions that inhabit the child's heart.from article: Film & Fiction by Dennis Palumbo, M.A., MFCC (from June/July 2001 issue of "Written By")
[image from site of Dennis Palumbo]
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Tips for Getting Your Script Past the Gatekeepers By Susan KouguellFor aspiring writers, getting a script past story analysts (often referred to as "readers") is often
the most challenging part of selling a script. Readers are often the gatekeepers for writers looking
to break into the industry--despite their often being paid poorly and receiving relatively little respect.Story analysts see scores of scripts, and their impression of your work can sometimes mean
the difference between your script being championed or buried.So, what advice would a story analyst give to writers hoping for that big break?
· We are intelligent, but few of us have psychic abilities. If it's not on the page, we have no way
of knowing what's in your head and what you intended. (For example: If your characters are divorced
when the story opens and this is an integral part of the plot, then establish this up front. Don't keep us
guessing unless you intend to reveal this information as a surprise.)· If your first 10 pages don't grab our attention, it will be difficult if not impossible to redeem yourself
later. Beware! We could stop reading your script right then and there.· We want to see characters who are unique, have distinctive personalities, and serve a purpose in the story,
otherwise you are truly frustrating us. [ excerpt from article on WGA site www.wga.orgbook:
Susan Kouguell The Savvy Screenwriter : How To Sell Your Screenplay (And Yourself) Without Selling Out!
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Never overlook any possible source for publicity. If your script is ready to roll,
tell the world about it. I wrote a TV movie called 'Seeing the Light' about a young
man with Down Syndrome, and my father suggested that I send the script to the
National Down Syndrome Society.He said, 'You never know. They may have contacts in the film industry.'.
I thought it was a long shot, but I did it, mostly to appease him. A few
weeks later, I got a phone call from Chris Burke, the actor who played
Corky on the TV series 'Life Goes On'He told me that he wanted to play the lead role. ... and he is now attached
to the script. The funny part of that story? I had already contacted Chris's
agent. He wouldn't even look at the script.The Down Syndrome association had saved my script, so when Chris
walked in their door for a presentation, they handed it to him personally."Jenna Glatzer [webmistress of Absolute Write]
from article: Pitch Your Dream to a Star by Christina Hamlett [posted on novalearn.com]
~ ~ ~
She does believe, however, that the reason there are fewer women on [TV show
writer staffs] is due to the fact there are simply not as many women writing."I'm sure there's prejudice out there, but I honestly don't concern myself with it.
If I started to worry about why I don't get things because I'm a woman, I'd never
get out of bed in the morning. At some point, people have to ignore whether or
not you ovulate and focus on whether or not it's on the page."Amy Sherman-Palladino [from wga.org article Witty Women by Alana Burgi Sanko]
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_______________________
"'Rules' of TV are nonsense. Follow them and you'll be hamstrung.
Ask yourself, 'Am I writing something worthwhile?' and just go for it! ..
Follow the sixty-four rules Aristotle wrote... If you run into any trouble
with your script, chances are you've broken one of his rules of drama."Aaron Sorkin (writer/producer: "TheWest Wing") [screentalk.org interview]
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_______________________
"I had a very hard time starting Traffic, because I'd had some problems
in my life with the stuff, and to write it I had to go back into that place.
I would shake, and weird things would happen. I thought it was really odd
that your body could send you this kind of information, and it just showed
me how little control I actually had over myself.For seven months, I just faced a blank page, and nothing happened.
I felt like a fraud, a charlatan, and I felt like quitting. I had a block,
because I really wanted to do something special with it—and I put
too much pressure on myself. So when it finally happened, it came
out in a rush. I felt like I didn't do it—it was just coming out of me."Stephen Gaghan [wga.org interview]
*--dvd: Traffic
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Susannah Grant******
".. a topic of current concern to screenwriters [is] the practice of using multiple writers instead of
sticking with the original writer of the screenplay. Although studios and producers are often the culprits,
sometimes it's the star who will bring in her favorite screenwriter to rewrite a screenplay.Grant experienced this when Julia Roberts brought in Richard La Gravenese for rewrites on Erin Brockovich.
According to Grant, La Gravenese made this as painless as possible: "He did the right thing. He called and
talked to me before he started. He told me how much he liked my screenplay and asked me questions.
It's the behind-your-back chat that kills you. You know if a star wants another writer, it's going to happen,
so no use fighting it. I just wish writers could be kinder to each other like Richard was."from Inside Film Magazine article by Susan Royal
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"Theater is a recreation. It might be a recreation for the mind as well as the emotion. Whether it's `The Real Inspector Hound'
or `The Invention of Love,' a play has to give satisfaction on that level. It should be a better way to spend an evening than
staying home and watching whatever is on television.I don't think of theater as night school. I want people to have a good time. It can be complex, it can be dense,
but to be hard is something else."Tom Stoppard [NY Times, 3.18.01]
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"The ability to enter into someone else's mind -- be they male, female, from the 13th century,
whatever -- that's part of the fun of being a writer. It's also part of the pathology of being a writer,
in some sense.We are condemned to be observers, condemned to really watch people and empathize and
put ourselves in other people's minds. Sometimes that's a big weight to carry around. So, at least,
let's make some money off it."Marshall Herskovitz [from WGA article Fortysomething by Terrance Sweeney]
[David Mamet] was much less protective of his screenplay [for "State and Main"] than I expected. He was~ ~ ~
It's interesting, I think, that I have become extremely successful by feeding off my own insecurities, and sharing them with a world of people who in many, many cases, identify them with their own experience. Neil Simon [Toronto Sun, 10.24.99] [book: The Play Goes On: A Memoir]
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much less precious about the material, about the language. He was constantly re-writing. It was refreshing...He told me was was not worried about the films that he wrote and did not direct. He said, "They're all orphan
children." He just writes them and gives them to Hollywood. He does not really concern himself with how
people do or do not serve the material.Alec Baldwin [Toronto Sun, December 20.00]
Mamet is author of Three Uses of the Knife : On the Nature and Purpose of Drama
related article: Ego and Creativity - by Douglas Eby
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"At its heartmeat core, writing is about exploring the questions of your
heart on the assumption that what intrigues you, what inflames or amuses
or ennobles you, will have the same effect on someone else. It's about taking
chances, and taking risks, and pushing yourself to be honest in the issues that
present themselves." J. Michael StraczynskiJ. Michael Straczynski The Complete Book of Scriptwriting
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"[My wife] got me to see a doctor about my having depression.
It's kind of a writer's disease: Edith Wharton. Coleridge. Styron.
Many, throughout history." Aaron Latham[paraphrased from interview by Charlie Rose, 5.1.01] Latham is author of
The Urban Cowboy [both the novel and screenplay], and Code of the Westrelated page: depression
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I get fan mail from all around the world that reminds me I´ve done important work that means something, to young lesbians in particular. I already feel I´ve made a contribution to the world. And while I don´t feel I have to do more, I still feel inspired. So I´m going to do a lot more. A lot more."
Guinevere Turner -
actor and screenwriter: Go Fish; "American Psycho" [Outlines mag. April 2000]
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"I wonder if teachers ever fully realize the power they have to shape our lives.
With each word and gesture, a teacher places a stone on the scale of life. If an idea
doesn't add weight to our knowldedge, it subtracts -- either as a fallacy that misleads
our thinking or a triviality that blurs it."Robert Mckee [LA Times Mag., Feb. 21.99]
book: Story: Substance, Structure, Style,& the Principles of Screenwriting)
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