I don't care what anyone says, creating decent…even semi-decent characters…is the biggest obstacle in screenplay writing. Doesn't matter how good a story you think you have, if your characters aren't where they should be, you’re screwed. Enjoy your time serving up Chow Mien in Chinatown. Maybe you’ll get a spike in orders on Oscar Night. Call me crazy (or hungry), but I really don’t want to end up there.
Of course a lot of movies still make it to the screen (or at least that little plastic box seated on the Blockbuster shelf) with sub-par character development. It's taken me all this time to really start resenting that. Who's writing this shit? Are these people just half-assing their way to Hollyweird? Yes...I think they are.
I’m clearly not an expert here, just some observations as I trudge through this whole thing…but I think it’s interesting, because it’s the process that brings all these elements home for me. Saying “you need strong characters” sounds like a pretty common-sense thing. “Thanks, generic book on screenplay writing!” Great advice, but your judgment during the actual writing process can be a bit off. You’re too caught up in the story…what happens next? Who’s gonna do what to whom? In what order do all these events happen? How the Hell am I going to explain that guy in the corner of the deli holding up a half-eaten burrito?
These are questions I have. And for the people who don’t invest in their characters, I have to say - I don’t really get it. I’ve poured myself into this thing, but I’m not naïve enough to think that every screenwriter is always going at 100%. You’re going to pour less of yourself into adapted characters than those who come from your own brain. If you are commissioned for a blockbuster, yeah…not gonna go the full 10 yards, that’s what special effects are for. But this original stuff that still lacks in breadth…it just kills me. Even the classics had character development - look at Sunset Boulevard. If you thought Norma Desmond wasn’t kitschy, I challenge you to a duel (yeah, I said it!). But it didn’t even matter about the kitsch…she had depth, emotion…desperation. It doesn’t necessarily matter what the quality is, as long as there is some kind of quality there.
So after three years of birthing characters for this first screenplay, reinventing them, and then killing them off only to start over again at ground zero, it occurs to me - I am almost to the point now where I have no idea who these people are. They’ve gone through so many iterations, it’s almost like real people I know and watching the transformations they’ve made over a span of fifteen, twenty years. The people we knew in high school…how much are they the same? Probably not much…if they are the same, they should get out more.
In life, we don’t really expect people to stay the same, so I’m not sure why this is coming as a surprise to me as a screenwriter. I’m feeling a little limited in my worldview, quite frankly. Sitting around, wondering where my original characters went because I suddenly don’t recognize them, but at least now they prove the theme of my work. Glad to have these newbies here, just looking at them out of the corner of my eye wondering why they don’t look the least bit familiar…and guarding my wallet a little closer, maybe. But at least that confirms to me that they’ve undergone a transformation…and that as a writer, I have. The tricky thing is conveying the journey from where they started to where they’ve ended up in under 90 minutes of screen time.
If anyone out there has examples of screenplays that really demonstrated character transformation, please feel free to share. I am not in a position to half-ass this since no one’s called asking me to write Spiderman 4. The place I’m trying to get to is transformation - but without the kitsch. Gone With the Wind…yeah, some definite transformation there in Scarlett O’Hara…but it was kind of predictable (sorry, Margaret Mitchell, love your work!). And that also spanned a time period of years, and was back in 1939, so…little tougher now I think, because audience expectations have grown and oh yeah, so have indie flicks. My deal takes place over about 3 months…and involves plot twists where the people you think are evolving are not really evolving - those you think are evolving are essentially DE-volving. So I have 3 months happening over 90 pages (100 if I really push this) to get it across. Oh, and about 30% of a screenplay is subplots involving supporting characters. Man, this shit is hard.
I’ll leave this with the one movie that has been my nemesis throughout this process: Juno. I waited to watch Juno, because I did not want some clever, indie-flick clouding my judgment. I avoided it for nine months with friends were hounding me to see it. Finally I broke down and rented it…and pretty much hated it. Was it a bad movie? No. Was it a great movie? No. Do I seem pretty arrogant judging a movie that sold in Hollywood when none of mine have yet? Yes. But I can live with that. My beef was just…I didn’t get the kid. She was cute, she was clever, she was pregnant…great. But I could never understand why she went back to the kid in gym shorts. It represented “life after teen pregnancy” in the movie, but…that wasn’t really enough to me. Run to what’s there, not what could be? Eh…what’s the real payoff there? Give your kid away and you too can get back with the guy in gym shorts? I dunno…guess I’m looking for more than gym shorts here.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Here's the thing about screenplay writing...
...the stuff you have to research can be kind of ridiculous. I just Googled "blizzards in Japan." How often do you find yourself doing that? But it’s merely an avoidance strategy….what can I do to avoid falling flat on my face? You find out things you never thought you wanted to know…still, it beats the research I had to do on oyster shots...those were some rough mornings.
Screenwriting is such a strange process, and I’m sure it’s the first time you never really forget. Equate that to whatever you want, but it will never be less odd, unknown or forbidden than it is the first time you do it. I'm just getting sp #1 out the door, but it's taken almost three years of my life, sent me off to Alaska twice, and in an odd way, even dictated my actual life in ways I would never have guessed. I'm not really a blog person, but people are always curious about the process, so maybe I should start explaining it a bit better.
It's a formula...Hollywood is not about a great idea that is simply transitioned from creativity to art. At the end of the day, it’s still a job. It was a little sad to me to realize there is an actual "arc" to how most movies are written and even produced. The way I watch films will never be the same...y'all could watch The Dark Knight and think, "Man that was a great movie and Heath Ledger was amazing." Yeah, that's kinda died for me....I just see structure, character and plot now.
But it's also a good thing...it teaches you consistency, and how to best evolve a storyline through the eyes of your characters. And the greatest process of all is the personal transformation you go through while writing
Most writers start with an ending, and write backwards...then they rewrite ‘til their hands hurt and end up with a story that is probably nothing like what they started with, and more than likely has a completely different ending.
I'm on the sixth major rewrite of this sucker, and while that may sound wasteful...it has been the biggest learning process of my life. Despite whether I have guided the story, or whether it's guided me...I didn't really know who I was before this process started. I like to equate that to what Van Gogh must have felt like before/after the loss of his ear*…Starry Night came later, so you do the math. And although I never gave my newspaper-wrapped ear to a prostitute, I have found that when you are writing this kind of thing, you definitely give more of yourself than you originally expect….and ironically, to people you will mostly never even meet. You tend to think when starting off that is going to be an abstraction...something you can easily separate from your innermost thoughts and vulnerabilities. Then someone asks you if they can read your work and you question whether your soul is quite ready for prime time….
But then you consider why it is that you started writing in the first place. There was something to share, something that, to you., may have began as mere commentary, but become transformational. And that’s all that life really is. There is a process here…but it’s a broadening one. If you keep your eyes open, life changes as your manuscript changes, and vice versa. And what you are left with is infinitely deeper than what you started with.
*P.S. I really feel Gauguin was the superior artist….but how much did Van Gogh’s ear have to do with that? An odd sacrifice, one born of dependency, and Hell…that probably sums up the whole of artistic impulse in any context. But who knows what would have been without that detached ear?
If you want another great artist comparison, Google Picasso/Matisse…Salieri/Mozart…seems we all need an infidel to drive us to peak performance.
Screenwriting is such a strange process, and I’m sure it’s the first time you never really forget. Equate that to whatever you want, but it will never be less odd, unknown or forbidden than it is the first time you do it. I'm just getting sp #1 out the door, but it's taken almost three years of my life, sent me off to Alaska twice, and in an odd way, even dictated my actual life in ways I would never have guessed. I'm not really a blog person, but people are always curious about the process, so maybe I should start explaining it a bit better.
It's a formula...Hollywood is not about a great idea that is simply transitioned from creativity to art. At the end of the day, it’s still a job. It was a little sad to me to realize there is an actual "arc" to how most movies are written and even produced. The way I watch films will never be the same...y'all could watch The Dark Knight and think, "Man that was a great movie and Heath Ledger was amazing." Yeah, that's kinda died for me....I just see structure, character and plot now.
But it's also a good thing...it teaches you consistency, and how to best evolve a storyline through the eyes of your characters. And the greatest process of all is the personal transformation you go through while writing
Most writers start with an ending, and write backwards...then they rewrite ‘til their hands hurt and end up with a story that is probably nothing like what they started with, and more than likely has a completely different ending.
I'm on the sixth major rewrite of this sucker, and while that may sound wasteful...it has been the biggest learning process of my life. Despite whether I have guided the story, or whether it's guided me...I didn't really know who I was before this process started. I like to equate that to what Van Gogh must have felt like before/after the loss of his ear*…Starry Night came later, so you do the math. And although I never gave my newspaper-wrapped ear to a prostitute, I have found that when you are writing this kind of thing, you definitely give more of yourself than you originally expect….and ironically, to people you will mostly never even meet. You tend to think when starting off that is going to be an abstraction...something you can easily separate from your innermost thoughts and vulnerabilities. Then someone asks you if they can read your work and you question whether your soul is quite ready for prime time….
But then you consider why it is that you started writing in the first place. There was something to share, something that, to you., may have began as mere commentary, but become transformational. And that’s all that life really is. There is a process here…but it’s a broadening one. If you keep your eyes open, life changes as your manuscript changes, and vice versa. And what you are left with is infinitely deeper than what you started with.
*P.S. I really feel Gauguin was the superior artist….but how much did Van Gogh’s ear have to do with that? An odd sacrifice, one born of dependency, and Hell…that probably sums up the whole of artistic impulse in any context. But who knows what would have been without that detached ear?
If you want another great artist comparison, Google Picasso/Matisse…Salieri/Mozart…seems we all need an infidel to drive us to peak performance.
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