Artigos publicados na revista especializada para roteiristas (scriptwriters / screenwriters) TwelvePoint.com, onde trabalho. Assim que possivel, vou adicionar as versoes em portugues.
Alem de artigos, a revista online TwelvePoint.com eh uma janela de visibilidade para roteiristas de todas as nacionalidades na Europa. Seu perfil e seus projetos sao visiveis nao apenas para assinantes do TwelvePoint, mas para todo mundo. Eis o meu perfil.
Script development – Issue 45, 16 March 2009 – Monica Solon, a writer, attends the Script Factory’s workshop on script development where Kate Leys explains that development includes technical aspects of script analysis as well as managing the relationship with the writer to enable them to find solutions to the problems in the script.
What Hollywood can teach us in Europe – Issue 44, 5 January 2009 – Monica Solon attends Doug Chamberlin’s Mastering Hollywood seminar.
Script development
There seems to be some controversy as to whether script development is a good or a bad thing. I have heard people say it is a waste of time and others say it saves money. In an industry without absolutes or certainties and with so much at risk, there’s only one thing about script development that is undeniable: it needs to be done by people who know what they’re talking about.
The first piece of advice that course tutor Kate Leys gave us at the beginning of the Script Development Workshop 101 at the Script Factory was that when working with a developer, it is crucial to know that person’s background. Kate does know what she is talking about. She has been head of development at various companies (Film 4 amongst them), teaching development and screenwriting (National Film School, Royal Holloway) and has worked as a script developer on films such as The Full Monty, East is East and Four Weddings and a Funeral. She is currently involved on a number of projects with established professionals such as writer-director Noel Clarke and comedian Jimmy Carr.
There were fewer writers than I had expected amongst the participants. Most of them were directors, producers and/or development executives, some of whom had recently moved to this position, some were still training and some were already established. This was indicative of the progressive change Kate says has been happening over the past ten (more particularly, five) years.
The demand for professional script development is slowly rising, the reason being Britain’s position as number three in the world film industry (behind the US and Japan), making 15% of the world’s films. ‘There’s no room for amateurs in this industry,’ she warned. However, development remains seriously undervalued. Kate suggested that whilst in the US the expression ‘development hell’ means that a script is not going to be developed, in the UK it means the opposite.
As development is beginning to be better established as part of the filmmaking process, we learned that bad development can be really damaging. What does it take to be a good developer then? Experience is at the top of the list but since this cannot be taught, the workshop covered the rest: what is development, what is a story (the classic narrative structure), which are the development documents, how to manage the relationship with the writer, how to manage a development meeting and networking.
Divided into two days, the course had a practical side where we had to analyse scripts and produce notes on them for use in a role-playing meeting where we were either the writer or the developer. It was incredibly hard to point out why the story wasn’t working in a positive, constructive way. In my case, being in the role of the developer was especially difficult since the writer was absolutely convinced that her story was perfect! Tough. Then it was my turn to be the writer and I could not see anything good about the story. Tougher. This hands-on experience gave us some idea of how complex the issues involved are.
What is script development about?
It is about helping the writer achieve the best possible script, to maximise its potential. Everything in development relates to that ‘big picture’, from the story analysis to managing a meeting. Kate stressed how difficult it is because it’s a collaborative process involving many people (whose opinions you seek, whose approval you need), it takes a great deal of time (two to five years), and it has to deal with many uncertainties, people’s expectations, control issues, insecurities and fears. Furthermore, development is a non-linear process in that it doesn’t follow a progressive pattern, which means that draft 2 can actually be better than draft 4.
Is this story working?
Kate reminded us that there is no one correct way of writing a screenplay or a fixed formula for storytelling. She believes scriptwriting is the hardest of all types of writing: ‘It’s like spinning ten plates at the same time. The script is not meant to be read, it is meant to be transported into a different medium.’
Bearing in mind how hard it is to write a script, we tend to expect a classic narrative structure: instinctively we expect stories to have a beginning/middle/end, a consistent reality, causality, conflict and a protagonist. However, even if a child can recognise if a story is or is not working, not everybody can explain why, write a good one or develop it.
Kate suggested some questions to be asked when analysing a script: Whose story is it? What does the protagonist want? What does the protagonist need? Those questions will lead to the core of the story (the theme) and, if you can’t answer them, there is a problem.
It is crucial to be able to identify the theme (also called the controlling idea, big idea or premise) since everything else in the script – every scene, action and line of dialogue – hs to relate to it. A theme is not always obvious; it can be buried quite deep in good stories and requires thorough investigation. Kate’s advice to pin down the ‘essence’ of the story is to analyse the structure and keep focusing down, discard everything that doesn’t belong to the main story until you grasp it.
However, script problems are not confined to the theme; they may take all shapes and forms. Development documents help examine the script as a whole but focus on specific areas. They are tools that allow for a better understanding of what is really going on in the story and will enable a technical analysis of the script, which will help produce useful, constructive notes.
Development documents
Kate suggested that after reading the script for the first time, your thoughts should be written down using simple, action-led phrases. This will help you understand what you are or are not deriving from the material in your hands. It will provide a sense of the story and will help you organise the ideas in a more structured way.
A basic document may contain a synopsis, a list of key characters and the Act structure. It is important to write a synopsis because it summarises the crucial parts of the story and it shows the writer that you understand the story correctly. Kate advises developers to write a synopsis from memory, as soon as they finish reading the script, to prevent the temptation to ‘fill the gaps’ in the story.
A list of key characters (who they are, what they want, what they need) is helpful to identify the protagonist, how the other characters relate to him or her, and how they all relate to the theme.
Identifying the Act structure, or intentional/unintentional lack of it, helps establish if the way it is organised is consistent with the purpose of the script.
These are the basic fundamental tools in any script analysis and Kate went on to show us other useful ones to help find problems that might not be easily identifiable. For instance, an ‘action/reaction’ document, which is a plan of the story through the character’s actions that can reveal if their actions are consistent with the theme or a synopsis of the theme and ideas and how they are expressed visually.
Managing the relationship with the writer
Documents are useful but the key role of a developer is not to solve the problem of the script (which is tempting if you are also a writer); it is rather to help writers find out what they can do themselves to deliver their intended story, allowing them to see where the problems are so that they can find the solutions. As a writer, it was great to hear Kate say that ‘the best possible story is the one the writer really wants to write’.
This also means that an honest and trustworthy relationship between writer and developer has to be established. Documents will provide consistent technical information to be discussed but it is equally important to be able to listen to the writer, for instance, on where the main idea comes from, what the motivation/inspiration was that led him or her to write it.
Asking open questions and not assuming things will achieve better results than instructing writers on what to do. Kate says: ‘Prescription closes doors; questions open them.’ Suggestions, therefore, have better results if presented as questions. (Why did you do this rather than that?) Asking intelligent, informed questions will help the writer have more clarity about what is really happening in the story and so have better ideas on how to improve it.
Kate pointed out that writers have a very low level of control once the script, or the idea for a script, is sold or begins to be developed. She stressed that insecurity and fear will naturally play a part in this collaborative process. There is a great deal of psychology involved. ‘Gloomy writers need reassurance; over-confident ones need even more.’ In dealing with writers, developers need to be objective and capable of generating discussions that will enable the writers to make the important connections by themselves.
The required skills for the script developer
A good script developer, therefore, has to be a good team player, organised, analytical, a good listener, diplomatic when talking to people, able to maintain confidence, flexible, and be able to trust his or her instincts. Hard, but possible.
Most of all, a developer has to be, in principle, an optimist: terrible scripts can be improved. It is crucial to keep the ego out of the way – there will be enough egos to interfere. Kate insisted: ‘Always keep the big picture in mind. This whole process is not about you being clever; it is about helping the writer achieve the script’s best potential.’
Prioritising what is going to be covered in a meeting is also very helpful. Establish a time-limit for the meeting at the beginning (Kate’s advice is two hours) and focus on the priorities. Don’t forget to treat phone calls, even email discussions, as meetings.
Development meetings
Kate’s advice is also good for development meetings that include producers, directors, executive producers and perhaps other people. In such meetings the level of insecurity, and fear and control issues will be extended to the maximum.
In Kate’s words, the film industry is ‘a nebulous industry that is indeterminate, unquantifiable, underfinanced and unpredictable’. When highly-specialised people gather to collaborate under such pressure there is a propensity to become loud – at times even nasty – and a development meeting can become a ‘confusing experience’. Again, remembering that you are all there to work on the script and keeping focused on the ‘big picture’ will help put things back into perspective. Nothing else should matter. From her vast experience, Kate warns us that it is still enormously difficult.
Establishing procedures helps, Kate says, and they are quite simple: be as prepared as possible, have quality notes to deliver, do your homework (know who the meeting participants are, what they have done, what they like), agree priorities and time-limits, agree what is going to be discussed at the next meeting and, most of all, trust your instincts.
Networking
‘This is the industry with the highest number of w*****s,’ Kate says, humorously. When it comes to managing relationships and networking, this is an excellent reminder. Kate says people who have nothing to do with you (not necessarily w*****s ) may have a destructive impact on your confidence. Her advice is to seek out people whom you really like and trust. In this industry we don’t have much to hang on to, and self-confidence is one of our most valuable, but also most vulnerable, assets. ‘Trust yourself, your instincts, your experience, your knowledge, your technical skills,’ she advises. ‘You have nothing else. Dubious people will make you doubt yourself.’
It seems logical that the way to shrink budgets is to produce better scripts. After looking at how a script can effectively achieve its best potential during a development process, I think I’ll leave this difficult task for more experienced people and concentrate on being a writer. However, as a writer I certainly learned a great deal about how to improve a script.
What Hollywood can teach us in Europe
Scriptwriter reaches the edge of the cliff. The weather is mild, sky blue, wind warm and the smell of ashes is in the air. She looks around. Cliffs ahead, desert behind, clouds of smoke billowing from the mountains on the horizon. The billboard is unreadable. Fire, she realises, LA is on fire again. She shudders. No sign of the Sphinx though. I’m on time, she reassures herself by taking a quick look at her wristwatch. Then she smirks. Don’t be silly, this isn’t a meeting; it’s a gate, a gate to the Wonderful Land of the Blockbusters.
The air shivers like a broad, tall heatwave emerging from hot tarmac. Scriptwriter’s heart pounds and throat goes dry. Here I go. She’s prepared: McKee, Field, Goldman. I know the rules. Greek mythology, Aristotle, Campbell, Sodoku. Her mind is sharp.
Sphinx begins to materialise. It flickers. It seems to be split in three parts: head, body, feet. That’s good. 3 Acts… I can definitely deal with this. The imprecise image begins to clear. Scriptwriter’s eyes narrow, then narrow some more. She frowns. Is this the head of … Homer Simpson? It is. Hmmm … the body of Shrek … Angelina Jolie’s legs. Creepy, but what CGI effects! Sphinx glares at her. Silence.
‘Pleased to meet you …’ Scriptwriter prompts.
‘British, right?’ the Sphinx thunders in a familiar, cartoonish voice, its massive green body leans down from a newly-materialised couch, crosses its long legs. ‘Ready for the question?’
Riddle, it’s called riddle, Scriptwriter thinks but she doesn’t dare correct the Sphinx.
‘What’s the most important rule of physics for a scriptwriter?’
Her face goes blank. No A-Levels in physics. GCSEs? She racks her brain. Nothing. The Sphinx begins to fade away.
‘Physics?!’ The Sphinx is disappearing. ‘But I’m a bloody writer!’ she yells, angrily.
‘Bloody writer … that’s so cute …’ she hears as the Sphinx slowly vanishes, the sound of its laughter still echoing in the sky.
‘Ask Doug!’
And like this …
… it is gone.
I’ll share with you one thing I’ve learned from the Mastering Hollywood Seminar; the rest you’ll have to get from Doug Chamberlin himself. If you’re invited for a pitch meeting in Hollywood, they’ll offer you muffins and soda. NEVER eat the muffin and DON’T drink the soda.
I don’t think Doug will hate me for giving away that extremely useful piece of advice – with a sweet tooth, I would eat the muffin and drink the soda and spend the rest of the meeting sucking my teeth and trying to swallow back the burps – because his seminar gave us so much more than that. It gave me much more than I was expecting: I learned not only how Hollywood works but also how to think about myself from a much more business-like perspective and this is something I can use in any industry, be it British, French or Brazilian.
I was a bit wary when I first read the seminar’s title. Would this be like those American-style uplifting, preachy, cheery, ‘how-to-be-a-successful … whatever’ events with holding hands and song-singing? It wasn’t. Doug can be hilarious – he’s a comedy writer after all, which is a bonus – but he is no Las Vegas showman. He’s clever and honest about what he’s going to deliver and he does deliver. He is also a very nice guy.
If you want to break into Hollywood, you’ll have to merge the two characters described above and become a writer who is aware of and will work the ‘business person’ inside you (invent him or her if they are entirely absent). Hollywood is about business. That’s what they do best and how they make money, and the only way to win your way in is to play by the rules, their rules.
The tricky bit about Hollywood’s rules is … well … their rules are crazy; they don’t make any sense. It is about business but a very distinct and unusual type of business, so most of the ‘normal-world’ business rules don’t apply. You won’t be able to ‘reason’ your way in. ‘Reason’ and ‘reasonable’ are not part of Hollywood’s dictionary; even ‘common sense’ is not very much there either.
Here are a few examples of Hollywood’s ‘counter-intuitive’ mechanics:
One would expect executives to be impressed and feel more confident if they knew how hard you worked on your script. Hollywood execs not only are not interested in your hard work at all; they’d rather not know. You’re a magician, a miracle worker and magicians don’t give away their secrets.
During a meeting, you would think that the more professionally you behave, the better. No. Artists who behave like normal people or like professionals in Hollywood are perceived as too well-adjusted and are therefore not geniuses.
To break into Hollywood, you have to understand the mechanics and be able to translate people’s behaviour and codes on the spot. You could learn by trial and error or you could learn from Doug. He helps you discover your strengths, hone them and make them work to your benefit. He has experience (check his credentials on his website), he has done it and he knows the path. True, it’s his path and other people might think differently but you ought to give some credit to a guy who has worked with Steven Spielberg, Barry Sonnenfeld and Ron Howard.
The seminar gives you practical and concrete information. I was amazed by the portrait of the industry, how it works, its power structure, how it is set geographically, the myths and the reality. If it’s something he cannot give you, he will show you how to get it, from online resources and script competitions, to a list of entry-level Hollywood jobs and how to get a work permit or a visa. The volume and quality of the information is impressive.
An interesting point Doug makes about how Hollywood works is its ‘map of power’. Being geographically based in the right neighbourhood can really help you. The potential of ‘casual’ meetings at the local grocery shop or the hairdresser should never be underestimated, and being close to where the studios are located can produce a lucky, random encounter with an executive of the studio to whom you have just sent your script.
It is crucial to understand that when you establish contact with a studio, you are actually establishing a professional relationship with an executive – a person, not the company – who is the link between you and the chain of command above, under or around him/her inside the studio. That’s when things start to happen and why nurturing relationships and networking is so vital in Hollywood.
Another peculiar rule is that in Britain it is seen as a sin to brag about oneself; in Hollywood people do it naturally and expect you to do the same. In Doug’s words: ‘Hollywood loves a pompous ass.’ It doesn’t mean you have to take that literally, however. Rather it means you have to share more about yourself, your achievements and your abilities than you normally would in an informal conversation. You don’t need to lie or exaggerate but be confident about yourself and volunteer information consciously, especially if it is something you think that person might need or like at that particular moment.
How will you know what people need? Research. Learn about them, their projects, what they’re planning to do next. Find your peers, people who have projects and ambitions that match yours and share. There are some reliable online tools, magazines and literature to improve your powers of observation. Hollywood is pretty self-centred so it does help enormously if you are based in LA or even if you appear to be based there. Doug has some pretty smart advice on how to do that.
The seminar also showed us how to find an agent, how to format a query letter and how to work out one’s story synopsis and premise, something crucial for getting to the next level. Attracting the attention of an agent is hard anywhere in the world and the only tools you have are your credentials and your writing skills so when you write a query letter, don’t forget that it is part of your job to write well. Use your talent creatively.
Doug showed us the different stages his and his creative partner’s query letters have gone through starting with a well-behaved, business-like one (which did not get any response). This evolved into another, more witty and humorous, which generated more attention but still no concrete results. For the final version, they created a parody of the Variety magazine cover that featured them, their story and some buzz notes, with a query letter and a stamped, self-addressed postcard already ticked with ‘Yes, please send me the Seinfeld and Simpsons’ specs.’ This one found them an agent. Don’t forget, though, they are comedy writers so the gimmick had a purpose and was perfect to show how good their attitude was.
Once your story (based on its premise and synopsis) has raised some level of attention and you’re invited for a pitch meeting, you need to know how to manage it. Preparing for the meeting and pitching was a really useful exercise during the seminar. I am terrified of pitching but observing my seminar colleagues’ pitching exercises encouraged me to try, although not having prepared properly, I failed dismally. I was all over the place. The ‘producer’s’ questions sent me off track. I couldn’t summarise the story. I became bogged down with details … but it was a fantastic chance to practise and think seriously about the script’s strengths and weaknesses. And now I’m less terrified. Pitching in Europe is hard enough, the British industry is tough – but pitching for Hollywood is quite another experience. It was merely an exercise but I could feel the heat. Now I know how much more prepared I need to be and I have more tools to do it properly.
It’s always good to meet people during workshops and seminars. The group comprised an interesting mix of ages and interests: a fifteen-year-old writer-director who is already making his own films (the next Spielberg?), an enthusiastic writer overflowing with ideas, a nearly-graduated student with a pretty cool writing style, a scriptwriter who has already written/directed/produced short films and another writer who gave us a wonderful gift.
During a coffee-break informal chat she told us one of the most compelling stories I’ve ever heard; we were all mesmerised by the images she was describing. There was a film there and the images were so powerful that during her pitching exercise, Doug’s assistant, Caroline (who is also a scriptwriter), was in tears! So was I. I was thrilled: I had just witnessed the birth of an Oscar-winning script.
What has physics to do with all that? If you can’t wait to learn, Doug will be in Edinburgh on 24-25 January 2009 and then back in London on 21-22 March 2009.
For details of the seminars see http://www.masteringhollywood.co.uk
[...] What Hollywood can teach us in Europe – Issue 44, 5 January 2009 – Monica Solon attends Doug Chamberlin’s Mastering Hollywood seminar. [...]
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[...] Script development – Issue 45, 16 March 2009 – Monica Solon, a writer, attends the Script Factory’s workshop on script development where Kate Leys explains that development includes technical aspects of script analysis as well as managing the relationship with the writer to enable them to find solutions to the problems in the script. [...]
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