In screenwriting, “cut” is an editor’s term that we borrow and use, judiciously, in the mysterious language of screenwriting. The argument in the, industry is whether to use it at all and, heaven  forbid, do not call the shots. You are “directing on the page.” I maintain that we are suggesting a more intimate understanding of what our intentions for the screen story are.  If film is a visual medium then it makes sense that a visual way of telling our stories, seeing the story as well as hearing it, must be reflected in how we transpose our story on to the page.

In my teaching I find this all the time.  Without seeing the story and as a result telling the story visually on the page, even many experienced writers are simply fitting a compositional style into film form.  Software leads them and they follow. Hence the stories lack the dynamic and inner emotional logic for a successful film. The script becomes source material and the director re-invents the story. Who can blame him. The producers like the idea, the director likes the idea. They’ll rewrite parts of the script and flesh out the characters in rehearsals and on the set.  The film costs twice as much as it should have, had it been written well in the first place.  Let me tell you what I mean.

Let’s say that we are suggesting to start far away by calling a long shot.  We aren’t working with a slide rule.  How long is long?  The Director and the Director of Photography will determine how long is long. We are suggesting a way to move the story effectively.  How it is fulfilled is the Director’s choice to make.  If the screenwriter’s job is to provide the blue print, the floor plan, he or she can’t have their hands bound or their horizons restricted.  Of course the writer will not call every shot or cut freely at will.  In the flow of the screen story, only cuts that are absolutely necessary should be included.  Indulgence in the over use of the symbols of change or an excess of description do not add value to the floor plan.  We are not writing novels and we know it .

Nothing arbitrary or extraneous. If you can’t justify it … you can’t have it and that goes for calling the cuts and the setting up of specific shots. They are a distraction and your entire effort my be discarded.  You need a balance.  The artistic choice of when to cut or call for a specific shot is all part of the screenwriter’s ability to tell a story, part of our brief.  What you want is a blend of description of action, dialogue that is fresh and right for the characters and the inclusion of specific shots to call attention to reactions or to reflect important moments.  The ability to cut, to move the story, to create a tone and rhythm, only enhances the effectiveness of the screen story.  In providing that mix on the page the screenwriter is involved in the collaboration that successful film calls for.

Call the cut when it is needed. Set up the specific shot when it is called for.  That’s what visual writing is .

For a long time I’ve thought that writers write too fast. I’ve got an idea … Bam! “It’s done.” Isn’t that what writers do …they write. It’s what most think of as the way it works.   Impulse writing at it’s best and pray that there is an impulse. “What comes next,” is the time honored method of choice. In today’s world of instant gratification where we want answers NOW it makes sense that the quicker we get our stories down the better it is.  Spontaneous is confused with creative. We are all too much in a hurry to finish our work and in our rush to judgement we often short change our efforts. Our stories don’t fulfill our intentions or the potential that the ideas may suggest.  Many years ago I found that when I thought I was finished with a days work and was on my way to dinner, I was flooded with all kinds of stuff that had to do with my story. I had to make notes so I wouldn’t lose it. What I realized was that I wasn’t ready to commit to my story yet. I needed more time.  I needed time for contemplation … for consideration … for dreaming. I needed time to make deep connections inside myself with the material. I needed to let it sit and settle in my imagination to find out what I was writing about. I needed loose time to let the story spill out in any way it wanted to.  It wasn’t a matter of dipping in at a prescribed time, impulse writing, “what comes next,” then dipping out.  It meant staying involved with the material all the time, hoping something would connect and then making a note to catch it for later. I found that I had added a pre-writing phase to the way I worked. I wasn’t postponing my artistic impulses towards story.  I was using my spontaneous impulses as a resource and that note taking was part of my screenwriting process. I read that Joan Dideon said that the best piece of advice her husband, John Gregory Dunne gave her, was that, “the ability to make a note when needed, is the difference between writing and not writing.” I couldn’t agree more. Neil Young the singer has said the same thing in his way.

Time to think …time to consider…time to let the material filter through our sub-conscience, bubble up and help us. Time to dream. If we allow for time in the way we work, our screenplays can’t help but be richer, fuller, closer to what our intentions are.  Give the stories the time to prove out their potential. I’m not avoiding. I’m not talking about an open ended pre-writing period. We all will work according to our own needs. It’s 6 months for me, ideally. The walking around, dreaming time is around 3 months so when I have an assignment I work the pre-writing into the contracted time frame. I know I’ll be ready to organize my notes and use them in writing the screenplay which takes another 3 months. I use little note books and carry them with me always, hide them around the apartment so what when I’m cooking, no matter where I land at 3 in the morning, there’s a book I can make notes in. The problem with the overflow is that you can’t turn it off. So at lease you can capture it. I’ve found that allowing for the time to write … really write, is a very satisfying way to work. Makes me much less anxious too. When I’m ready to write … I’m writing out of an abundance of material… all kinds of material … shards of story … runs of dialogue …descriptions of action … character suggestions … everything and anything that can help my story. I put it all down with no concern for where it fits or if it fits. When I look at it later I’ll make my choices, but I’ll have the raw material to work with.  It makes sense … to me.  Time is a key factor in screenwriting.  Use it wisely.

Collaboration is the name of the game and it starts with the writer being able to fully express his or her screen ideas on to the page. In my last post I talked about craft. The  writer must have a craft to be able to do that. A screenplay that is loosely based on common sense and clever dialogue invites interpretation. It is a screen idea not a screenplay. The director and the screenwriter are not in conflict. Film is a collaboration where the director relies on the screenplay as the foundation on which to build and articulate the ultimate vision that is projected on the screen. The screenwriter who accepts the challenge of putting together a screen story, whether his own or a commission, who will spend the time, to discover, recognize, flesh out the characters and the dynamic action of the story, is a writer who has a craft. The insightful touches whether verbal or visual, the nuances, the central core of the progression, the choices as to how the story is revealed are all in the script. Here is a bicycle, the best racing bike ever made, “Lance, it’s your’s now. Ride it to the finish line.”

Good film shouldn’t depend on the the magic of the editing room. Coverage! Coverage started way back in the days of early television and multiple cameras on the floor. Shoot wide, shoot close, shoot this angle, that angle, major points of interest and put it all together in the editing room. Henry Fonda, blame it on him! Wonderful actor. He wanted to make “Twelve Angry Men” into a movie after it was a major television success. But the Studios couldn’t see it. Twelve middle aged men ranting at each other in a room? Fonda controlled the rights and decided to do it on his own. He got the financing and who could do a better job than the director of the TV show, who was that director, Sydney Lumet. His first feature film. Lumet shot the film like he shot the TV show. Coverage had come to Hollywood! 50 years later it is still the accepted way. Modified but recognizable.  Go in expecting to create the film in the editing room.

Technology has advanced The art and craft of screenwriting hasn’t. There is more of it, not necessarily better. Why? Perhaps… Time, capital T. The way we value time. Time spent on writing. Time spent on pre-writing. Next time…

Just a PS on the show MI5. Having just mentioned it as the best written show on television I have to say, in the most recent episode it appears they maybe losing their way. Hope not, it’s been consistently good for six years so far.

You meet a film person in Hollywood and after being introduced the first question is, “Tell me the story.” “Tell me in 3 lines.” “Give me the slug line…” And you’re off to the races.

Everybody in Hollywood has at least one script, “with an agent,” “in pre-production,” “in the car.” Of all these efforts labeled as scripts maybe 1% have any worth. Producers, agents, the town is drowning in scripts. Hence, “readers” who have no experience in either writing a script or know what to look for, who graduated school only months prior, make up the front line, fielding the onslaught of missiles, the barrage of “scripts” and who make the critical decision, “Is this a screenplay?” “Is it worth a second read?” The pipeline is jammed.

As my landlord said years ago when I took my apartment which was designated as a professional apartment, “Everybody that writes a postcard is a writer! Show me a contract.” Fortunately I had just signed one.

Too many people now rush to take the shortcut, so enamored are we by technology.  But software is not gong to write your screenplay for you. And inspiration will only take you so far. Frank Sinatra famously said that inspiration was over rated. Dizzy Gillespie said inspiration was for amateurs. Someone is going to have to supply the perspiration. Craft matters. You have to know what you are doing.  The waters are muddy with amateurism and mediocrity betting on luck and connections.  And because of the glut, the pitch has become the all important focus for most writers. Bass akwards. Craft matters.

Hollywood being home base for both TV and movies confuses the issue further because getting to write two lines a week for a TV show is a foot in the door and why not.  But that foot in the door can seduce you straight into meat grinder mode and you may never get out. Having said that, television these days, and I am not the first to note this, has more well written shows than there are well written movies. TV is as good a way to do good work than any other. MI5 on BBCA, best crafted show on television. Criminal Minds, consistently well written. Craft matters. http:bit.ly/rCEqK9

You go into a theatre, sit in the dark, a film flicks across the screen. An usher doesn’t come down the aisle with sheets of paper about what you’re watching. You get the story from the progression of what you see and hear. So in laying out the blue print, the screenplay, you have to include all of the dialogue, the visuals, and the description of the dynamic…what happens. We see as well as hear. A screenwriter does not just write dialogue. How you lay it all out is the question.  What you lay out and how you do that has to have an emotional progression and an active progression, that you choose, that you sculpt, to tell your story.

My call for best screenplay are “Margin Call” and Midnight in Paris.”  My  bads…The Ides of March.