Welcome to Never-Never land courtesy Final Draft.

I’ve talked about technology before. I’ve said that software won’t write the screenplay for you. The complex emotional and visual logic behind the software is still crucial to the creation of the screenplay. Today many would be screenwriters leave that out and rush to press the keys. Leave out the humanity and you’re left with mechanics. Technology is a tool and only a small part of the equation. But today technology is pervasive and persuasive in all aspects of our society. We’ve been trained to accept it. Believe in it’s power. It is today’s mind set. We by pass the voice that says, “wait a minute.” From the New York Times,”Unparalleled capacity for lying, fabrication and manipulation.”

Partly due to our age of technology and the appetite for instant gratification and short attention spans, everything is about speed.  We want answers immediately.  There is NO TIME to question.  The very idea seems like a personal betrayal of our individual artistic output.  Spontaneous, creative impulses drive our screenwriting efforts and satisfy our need to finish.  But even though the world has speeded up the human story is still what we are writing about and for. Truth is, the human being has not  changed much for centuries. The same emotional needs and ambitions drive us even though the environment we live in  has changed. The same fears and doubts unsettle us. Even in animated stories about robots it is still the human qualities that move us.

In my screenwriting process each session on an element of the screenwriters craft ends with an assignment an exercise. The exercises come in two parts. One part has to do with the writers articulating on the page what they have understood in the session about character, dialogue, the visual component, the idea, the step outline and or finally the first draft. Putting it on the page takes it out of theory. Theory is not going to help you write anything. Use it right away so you don’t lose it. The second part of the exercise is questioning what you have written on the page. All too often I find writers do the first part of the exercise…the writing, some better than others, but they fudge the second, the questioning! Questioning suggests more work.  Questioning suggests you may not be finished. Uncomfortable!  It suggests more work. A betrayal!

What it also suggests however is that new writers don’t know HOW to question and WHAT to question. And that is valid. So I am giving you a kind of template, a guide, to remind, to jump start, to encourage you to question your work at every stage of writing your screen story.

Does it make sense?

Can you follow the progression of the events?  Does the logic of the progression hold?

Is the emotional logic sound?

Are the characters recognizable?

Does the dialogue fit the character?

Are the characters as rich as they need to be, as interesting?

What is the insight, the nuance in the moment?

Have you used the VISUAL?  Writers tend to rely on dialogue.  We are writing for a visual medium not for radio.

Does the progression command attention from the opening right through to the end?

Does the end fulfill how you got there?

Is it interesting?  It may make sense, you can follow the information, but if it is not interesting who will care?  It’s a tough question.  Ask it!

It is not cheating.  No one is listening, looking over your shoulder.  This is between you and you.

Question.  Step back.  Fix it.

It is your work.  Does it fulfill what you intended?  Does it reflect the potential you had in mind?

Spend the time you need for your screen story to mean what you meant it to mean. The questioning is part of your process.  It is not a luxury, it is not a hypothetical, it is not an “add on.”  It is an active part of the process. Build it into the way you work.  It can only help the outcome.

I also pay attention to the time factor.  I leave time for the idea to evolve.  It’s my walking around time.  Time to contemplate, really time to dream.  I know that once the idea has rooted into my system, my subconscience will help me generate material for the story.  I am not being pretentious.  It’s a conscious choice for me. Not hocus, just my imagination at play.  We are working on a screenplay … not a screen documentary…a screenplay.  There is play in what we do.  Your idea is in play.  Meaning that it is woking inside you. Playing in your mind. I let it spin and roam free and not for a brief period, but over an extended period.  If I can have 3 months to let the idea gestate and grow, the time I spend will serve me well.

Three months is what my internal barometer suggests.  It is a personal, individual choice and may be anywhere from a number of weeks to a few months.  The writer will decide what is needed.  No formula …personal choice.  I suggest that the period not be open ended.  You may never get out of research.  That’s called avoidance.  During this pre-writing time I take notes of all the scraps, bits and pieces that my mind throws up.  I write it all down with out concern as to where it goes or how it fits into my screenplay. I get it all down in whatever rough way it occurs to me.  So I may have a few lines of dialogue, the description, even partial, of a character, the beginnings of a scene … stuff.  All kinds of stuff.

When my pre-writing note taking period is over, I put my collection on to the computer.  The act of writing it over agan reminds me of what I thought all those months or weeks ago.  It allows me to replay the material over again in my head.  In a way , it brings me back to the material taking it out of theory and putting it into practice.  I’m making the material active ready to put into the form of a screenplay.  Now I can begin to see where the various shards, the flotsom and getson of my imagination may fit into the screen story. I can see what the sprouts of my imagination have grown into. I also find that the act of rendering my notes from the little books that I use to first capture my new found creative impulses, on to the computer, has expanded the material.  The copying itself has become part of the process.  A few lines become half a dozen lines.  A piece of a scene fulfills itself into a full scene.  A character may spin off other characters.  There is no rule for this.  It is just the way my mind works… and is worth trying.

If you are available to your material, your imagination, intelligence and the excitement of discovery will work for you.  Ideas don’t come out fully formed.  They have to be nurtured, allowed to develop, grow, just like our proverbial garden, in their own unique ways.  They must be fed with related concerns, stimulated with complexities, sometimes mixing in surprising aspects, dramatic or comedic elements. The original idea acts like a magnet drawing elements of interest to it.  It’s like an ameabia growing, sponging out in all directions.  Our overview will finally shape the growth into the screen story.  We will throw out what we don’t need, what is extraneous and distracts us or disrupts our focus.  Once we harness the energies of our idea, and find the right form to contain it, we will have a screen story that is logical, interesting as well as entertaining for an audience’s satisfaction … and … it all started with the spark of an idea that came from …where ever.

What do I mean by “find the right form to contain it.” I’ll get into that next time.

When the subject of rewriting comes up in a discussion, the participants all acknowledge the concept with knowing frowns, a positive bob of the head and a comfortable smile. Of course, it goes without saying, rewriting is a given, built in to what we do as screenwriters. Then the new draft comes in and although there have been adjustments, the work hasn’t changed that much. Often for the worse. What was the rewrite all about? Most of the time the new material is put on top, or squeezed into, the old.

This takes me back to an older discussion. When I taught at the NYU Film School, rewriting came up early and often. I was told that the computer and software made the work faster and easier. Yet, when the adjustments were made and the new draft finished, somehow the writers weren’t satisfied. The rhythms were disjointed. The new draft just didn’t work. I pointed out that what the writers were doing was isolating a segment that needed to be fixed, and quickly typing or copying and pasting the changes and moving on to the “next.”  The computer makes that tempting. But change suggests change. You have to chart, see how the initial change effected the rest of the draft and follow your change through the entire script, sometimes re-conceive, by making the ripple effect changes that are now required. If you only put the fixes in where they are needed, you throw off the rhythm and logic of the entire piece and your draft will be off kilter.

You have to control the entire work, including the adjustments, new ideas, alterations in character, perhaps locations, perhaps insights, to tell your story. Changes that require more changes. Rewriting is a big deal. No it it is not easy but it is only “hell,” when you do it piecemeal. Cut and paste won’t do it. Software won’t do it. Rewriting is an in depth undertaking in rearranging your script to make it better. When I work on my first draft and ideas occur to me about things that I might want to change, I make notes about the changes I want to make and move on. When I finish my draft, I have a set of notes for the changes I want to make and am ready to start my new draft.  I write a whole new  draft, including all the adjustments I’ve collected as well as what I find spontaneously as I work on my new draft. I start at the beginning and work my way through the entire script. Yes … rewriting takes time but I control all of the rhythms and all of the logic, not just within the isolated segments, as well as everything new incorporated into the new draft. In a funny way the computer makes it harder to rewrite and cut and paste is dangerous. Writers using this approach I have seen time and again, lose the thread of the story. Unbalance the piece. We need the time to let the material sit in our heads and in our fingertips. We need contemplative time. We need time to think about and to do our work. We need time to rewrite. Writers as I’ve said before are in a rush to finish the script and writers are in a bigger rush to “rewrite.” Even when you have a tight deadline you still have to proportion your time and take the time to get it right. Rewrite.

People called.  Some wanted references. I provided them.  They did a check.  Others challenged,  ”I’ve made my living for ten years writing for TV…  what can you teach me?”  Others were aggressive …if not rude. “You called me.  Don’t come” I said. “I just want …a refresher”. The class started, the participants drifted in, some grudgingly. Heads down, no eye contact, “Show me.” Been there before … didn’t throw me.  I did what I always do, explain as clearly and logically as I can and as interestingly as I can, if you don’t get them to listen … what’s the point? I lay out the logic and theory of the screenwriting craft as I have understood it.  The sessions rolled over.  The group warmed up.  They did the small exercises attached to the end of each session so that the writers would practice the theory in a real way on their own time and be ready with it for the next session. We would then do them out loud and share what was right about them and what had to be adjusted. They seemed to be having a good time. Everyone was now participating fully. They laughed at my jokes …keeping them involved, paid attention to my stories, absorbed, and the logic of the steps I was taking them through towards screenwriting. I could tell by their exercises that they were getting it. Even when they got it wrong they understood the simple adjustments that would make it right. In the next exercise they got it right. The screen stories were developing before our eyes.  They were short screenplays based on the limited material generated in the exercises.

Then a familiar moment occurred. It had happened often enough so I found myself waiting for it. After a session, usually in the middle of the four weeks, one of the former grumpy writers would hang back, shuffling papers that were already gathered, looking over notes, while the other writers packed up and left.  When everyone was gone and I was about to leave, the lagging writer would say, Irv can I talk to you …?”  ”Of course.”  ”I’m sorry I gave you a hard time… all I can say is …I didn’t know what I didn’t know.”  No harm done.  I was helping.  That’s what it was all about.  And I did appreciate the acknowledgement.

There are certain aspects of screenwriting that can be taught to improve a writers already existing understanding.  How to approach character.  How you can look at location with a deeper sense of what it means.  The importance of the visual component so your script isn’t all dialogue. That’s a big one. How you put that on the page in film form. You don’t get the logic, the How To of it, under the pillow as a gift.  It is not about trial and error or the use of common sense.  And understanding the emotional logic and visual logic of visual storytelling is something I find a great number of experienced screenwriters have not thought through clearly. On the other hand the kind of writing required when part of a pool on a sit-com often works against the understanding of a full independent screenplay. I have had several novelists and journalists in my classes and there again, a different skill set. Just as being an actor or a camera person helps with writing a screenplay but the essential part of screenwriting is still the distinct purview of the screenwriting craft and must be learned as a a new skill.

Over a number years of both writing my own plays and screenplays and also teaching screenwriting I have developed a comprehensive approach that gives writers an understanding of screenplay logic that provides a solid basis for the confidence needed to write good screenplays.  I am comfortable with my way of working and know that the writers that I work with go away with a process that they can use in writing their screenplays.  Worth doing.  Worth spending time on.  I also enjoy telling my stories it’s almost like writing a screenplay.

And as I came to understand the screenwriter …collaboration as a part of life, part of the flow of the artistic effort, a natural part of the equation, I wrote a screenplay heavily influenced by what I had absorbed from Italian films.  Afterwards I realized, for myself, it was my small homage to Italian film. It was in English. It was about our society but I wrote an Italian film.  It is called, “The Elephant is Well,” and it is not about a sick elephant.  It is based on a minor misunderstanding which escalates into, a small version of, World War Three.  A very stick in the mud, middle aged dentist, whose hobby is photography, wanders around Little Italy in New York, taking pictures.  He decides to enter a photo of a very noble looking gentleman into a Photo Character Contest. He needs a release. He doesn’t know his subject’s name. He makes a 4 by 6 copy and goes down to Little Italy to find his subject.  Go ahead.

There was interest in the screenplay from day one.  ”It works.”  ”It is special.”  ”It is eminently castable.”  ”It must be done.”  I was encouraged.  I was brought to Hollywood.  Lunches were had.  Meetings were exciting.  Plans were made.  The word, “MONEY ” was spoken out loud.  After one particularly humiliating suggestion about casting, in the name of making it “appeal to a wider audience,” I checked out of my hotel, and flew back to New York. When one describes the perceived incidents of disaster in Filmdom to others (civilians) not in the film biz, they are very funny, though the pain maybe all over your face.  That’s what I was met with on my return.  Not support just hilarity. “Alright Irv, you don’t want him.  Who do you want?” I didn’t want to play.  My friends were insistent. “Marcello Mastroianni,” I blurted.  I hadn’t thought about him. Too high… too far.  He hadn’t come up as a possibility.  I was only dreaming.  My friend Paul said, “I know him.”  Paul had studied architecture in Rome. Marcello had wanted to be an architect. And only days later I was on a plane to Milan to meet with Marcello Mastroianni. I still felt that I was on the outside watching me at the bar at the Principe de Savoy pinching myself while waiting for Marcello Mastroianni.  He did come.  We spent the evening together. I gave him my, “Elephant”.  We met again. He regrettably, couldn’t sign a letter of intent because as he sadly said, “Very hard for me to read in English.”  I ended up meeting him in Rome and reading the script to him.  I was told he’d sit for five minutes.  I was determined to read for five minutes.  I read.  He sat opposite me.  I watched him over the top of the pages.  He began to move in the part of Vittorio in his chair.  I read slower.  Four and one half hours.  He signed the Letter of Intent.  We went to dinner.  I felt like I had climbed the mountain.  It was one of the memorable things I’ve done in my life.  I had him for eight years.  I couldn’t put it together.  My fault … I didn’t  have … I didn’t know … When I finally had a producer, we were in pre-production and sadly, Marcello got sick and died.  The production dissolved.

As life and luck would have it, I found my way to Alberto Sordi. He was a great character actor in Italy and throughout Europe, he was on the same level as Marcello Mastroianni. He was given the script.  Shortly afterwards he contacted me. He was interested.  I flew to Rome and spent two days with Alberto Sordi and his confidants.  He was very complimentary, very kind and wanted to do the role.  He asked apologetically, if I would allow some small changes to the character to fit his style.  He asked me … he didn’t demand.  Of course I agreed … gladly, humbly.  Again there was immediate interest on major levels.  Didn’t work.  As the contracts dragged out, Aberto Sordi … well … he passed away.

What stays with me is that two major character actors … world class, were excited about my screenplay, treated it … and me with respect and actually signed to do the production.  To me it’s an acknowledgement of the value and merit of the screenplay and to the Italian sensibility.

My, “Elephant is Well,” has surfaced again, to taunt me. Again there is excitement … and plans … and … and…  Maybe this time …Maybe this time … And it all goes back to and rests on, the seed, the Screenplay.

My respects to Tonino Guerra and Italian Cinema.

We have at our disposal, the suggestion of lighting to enhance mood, style, internal shifts of emotion and to highlight extremes of the human condition.  We can call for silence or quiet to enhance the drama of the moment.  We can describe the timing to create the comedic effect of the situation. We can use the camera to bring out the best in our story elements.  We can shift the audiences attention to where we want it, by stopping a scene, cutting the moment off, and specifically going to the next moment that we want the audience to see.  Not a random, general shifting of attention, but a specific altering of the audiences attention to where we want it to go.  It is as if we take the audience by the hand, change their consciousness or awareness, do their thinking for them , by using transitions to move our audience immediately back or forward in time, or jump in the story progression, without question and immediately, because we construct the transition technically to get us where we need to go because we have done it in such a seamless and harmonious way that the audience doesn’t question how they got there or why, their attention transitions comfortably and is ready to move on with us in the story.  It all has to do with the writer’s choices and their standards and ambitions for the screenplay in telling the screen story .  Screenwriting on this level can compare with the best of novel writing.

I suggest that screenwriting can be enormously rewarding while attracting producers, directors,  actors and film financiers to the quality of your work.  Your time and effort will pay off.  You will put yourself in a position to sell your film scripts and have a hell of a time writing them as well.  Imagination, practice, allowing for time to do the work at the service of a specific screenwriting skill set, will give you the confidence to persevere in the very difficult film market.  Be Prepared.  Be the best you can be.  Don’t just fit in.

Someone mentioned a list of ten top screenwriters put together by a Craig Mazin. I don’t know him but I took a look and it’s a good one. I don’t agree with every film choice but the writers are all top #screenwriters and for good reason. http://www.askmen.com/top_10/entertainment/133_top_10_list.html People ask me why not put #Quentin Tarantino on that list? He writes in flashes is my answer. Worth taking a look at Mazin’s list and spending some time looking at all those films.  I am sure there are other lists but talking lists makes for chatter unless you spend time with the films and learn from. Unless you have the skill set, a mastery of the screenwriting craft!

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.

Most# writers are trapped in dialogue. 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 chunks of dialogue and narrative 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 her/him. The producers like the idea, the director likes the idea, together they’ll rewrite parts of the #script then flesh out the characters in rehearsal and on the set.  The #film costs twice as much as it should have had it been written well in the first place.

Sp 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. That said however that is what most beginning writers have to be weaned away from.

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 might 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 true 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 enhance 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.

Recently a tutorial student ( one-on-one instruction ) told me that, in searching for screenwriting help, he had spoken to five teachers of screenwriting.  He told each of them that he had a,”great idea,” for a screenplay.  Each of them, in their own way and style, was enthusiastically encouraging.  ”That’s terrific,” “Great.” “Do it.” “Do it!”  ”But you,” the student said, “when I told you that I had a great idea,”  you said,  ”I don’t care.”  I remember telling him that he may have a, “great idea” for a screenplay, but what good is it if you don’t know what to do with it.  The writer came to me to learn how to write a screenplay not for me to be a cheerleader or prophet or fortune teller concerned with his future sales or perfecting his pitch for his,”great idea.” Your common sense, intelligence or instincts alone won’t get you there.  Impulse writing for the screenplay which forces the writer into a what comes next mode isn’t good enough.  If you don’t  have a way to work or a way to craft unformed material into a pattern for the screen, what are we talking about?  Theory is fine but if you don’t get it out of your head and onto the page what good is all the fine verbiage?