Sunday Movie Blog: The Sheer Relentless Misery of Being a Screenwriter

photo by Chapendra

This week's article has been written for a friend. A screenwriter. Someone I know, who has had a "screenwriter's week." Which for those of you not familiar with the term, is any week where a screenwriter has to deal with non-writing "creative" people.

I have recently become a fan of Raymond Chandler. Not because of his novels, which I am sure are wonderful reads, but because of the article he wrote about his experiences of writing screenplays in Hollywood. It's very well written bile... which is a pleasure in its own right. However, for me, the thing that interests, is how timeless Chandler's experiences are. The complaints he outlines are just as true today as they were then. They're not even experiences exclusive to Hollywood. In this article he neatly sums up the sheer, relentless misery of being a screenwriter.

I have a love/hate relationship with screenwriting. I love the process of writing for cinema, but at the same time I hate the business I work in. The love is easy to understand. Learning to write screenplays is one of the greatest challenges a writer can take on, both technically and creatively. I've been working at the craft for fourteen years, on the back of another ten years of professional writing experience, and I still only feel like I am scratching the surface of it. It's almost impossible to describe to someone new to screenwriting, just what a huge intellectual and creative task they are taking on. The more I learn, the more epic and heroic I understand that task to be... and, conversely, the more I understand why so many screenplays are diabolically bad. Of course they are dreadful, how could they not be; this, after all, is a supremely difficult task.

If I could wave a magic wand change one thing about the industry, I would have it instantly and completely understood by every producer, commissioning editor, director, agent and wannabe writer, that screenwriting is a mind-numbingly difficult and skilled profession. It is the writer's equivalent of scaling the North face of the Eiger, with an irritable, obese psychopath in your backpack. It is not something that just anyone can do. It is not something that you can learn from a book or a during a weekend seminar. It is hard to do well, near impossible to do superbly.

It's my belief, that almost every single problem the film industry faces, or has ever faced, is caused by a real lack of appreciation of the craft involved in screenwriting. Or, in other words, pretty much all of the problems I see in the film industry, and in independent film, are being caused by the belief that everyone in the fucking universe is qualified to be involved in the creative process. In particular, the idea that anyone who can read a script is qualified to give notes and also to rewrite.

For very, very good reasons (ie. a real possibility of being punched very hard in the face over and over and over again), no one in their right mind would walk onto a film set and start moving the lights about. It would also seem insane and presumptuous for anyone to walk up to the camera in the middle of a shoot, in order to change the lens, the framing, the colour balance and the focal point. It's also considered down-right rude to stroll onto a set, in order to tell an actor to play the role differently, perhaps with a Chinese accent. People generally don't meddle with the lights, or the camera, or the actors, simply because they don't feel qualified to interfere. They're right, of course, they really don't know enough about lighting, cameras or acting to do anything but shut their fat faces. It's wonderful that they understand that. This isn't true for the writing process, though... where everyone and their dog feels qualified to spew their rancid, ill-informed opinions.

So, in terms of sheer difficulty, how does lighting a movie, shooting a movie, acting in a movie and actually writing the screenplay for a movie compare? Well, unsurprisingly, I believe writing the movie is by far the most demanding of any of those processes.

This is the tragedy of screenwriting... it is, by far, the single, most difficult part of the whole creative process and yet, it is the least appreciated. Every motherfucker feels qualified to interfere; everyone believes they know better than the writer, the person who ironically has dedicated their life to learning how to do this one thing.

Ultimately, the universal lack of appreciation of the craft of screenwriting creates an environment where good scripts are turned to bad... where bad scripts are thrown into production, and the most galling of all, a situation where it is easier to make a living as a camera assistant than it is a writer. The primary difference being, that people are prepared to pay a camera assistant. They can appreciate that you have to pay someone to carry the tripod and the batteries... they don't appreciate that you have to do the same for the writer.

Seven years ago a producer said to me "We want your script, but we can't afford to option it, because the line producer for the production is costing £400 a day." To which I replied "Well, get your line producer to write your script then." I wish this incident was an anomaly, but it isn't. In the industry and within independent film, writers and writing are treated with contempt. Which is why so much of the output is so bloody awful. Letting everyone play with the script, is no different than letting everyone play with the camera.

Despite all the lip-service you'll hear paid to the idea that "the script is king," it isn't. The script is the one piece of the production process that gets dragged through every hedge in town. Being a screenwriter is largely about experiencing an endless series of humiliations, at the hands of people who can barely construct a coherent sentence... and then not being paid for your efforts, because if you were worth paying, they wouldn't need to do your job for you, would they? For many directors and producers, there is very little difference between a screenwriter and a secretary. They genuinely believe that your primary role is to type up their ludicrous ideas, rather than your real job, which is to protect the script, as much as you can, from the idiots and mentalists in production... all of whom are frustrated, wannabe writers.

However, despite that, it is worth learning to do well. Even though the learning process will take decades and won't be appreciated by anyone, except maybe other screenwriters. It's worth doing, simply because it is so hard. If you can write a screenplay, you can write pretty much anything.

This week I have been studying the anatomy of sentences (which may well explain why mine are a bit ragged and self-conscious). I've been focusing on the technical form of sentences, because the sentence is where a screenwriter controls the director's sense of pace and also, if you're smart enough, how the scene is eventually edited. The relationship between sentence form and pacing is one of those things that nobody ever talks about, basically because nobody has written a producer friendly book about it. (short words, lots of pictures, perhaps some colouring in)

Which brings me to my point:

If you don't love sentences, in a pure way, the way a mother loves her children, then you've no business writing screenplays. Screenwriting, as a form of writing, is technically demanding, more so than a novel, more so than poetry... and, if you're not writing outstanding screenplays, you might want to think twice before giving me, or any other screenwriter, notes. Trust me, sunshine, you, are, not, qualified.

This isn't about being precious or a being a diva... it's also not about a refusal to take notes. All screenwriters need notes. However, what every screenwriter does need to develop, is an instinct about whose notes to take seriously and who to punch very hard on the nose... and pretty much everyone in independent film needs to learn when to shut up, when to take a step back, and to understand at a profound level, that unless they can provide evidence that they know better, the writing process is none of their godamn business.

keep writing and viva la revolution

Posted via email from Filmutopia's Sunday Morning Movie Blog