Recycle

14 December, 2007
editing, screenwriting
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According to an article at The Hollywood Reporter, the writer’s strike and imminent negotiations with the directors and actors may give TV networks the chance to break out of the development cycle. Each spring they fund many scripts that are produced as pilots (100+ per network), some of which are turned into pilots (around 25), few of which are turned into series (less than ten), few of which make it past the first twelve episodes (one or two make it). This costs millions of dollars – pilots cost an average of $5 million these days.

The strike and possible future strikes mean that the next cycle of development is threatened. The studios want to take this chance to get off the merry-go-round. They want to do this to save money. Writers and post-production people might find the crap-shoot that is pilot season frustrating, but they’ll miss it if it goes. The studios want to spend less money on producing content that will never get shown to an audience. That means less work for production teams.

This will only change once the networks convince the advertisers to support a new development process – where new shows can start at any time of the year. This is the way it used to work in the primordial days of TV and is the way in other countries. Which system is better for writers and editors?

Stop

14 December, 2007
Links, screenwriting
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In an article at The Hollywood Reporter, five screenwriters talk about the strike, adaptation and tips on how to organise your day:

When I was writing novels, I knew Graham Greene, and he gave me the best piece of advice ever given to any writer. He said, “Always stop when it’s going well.” […] because you know what to return to. So you don’t have those sleepless nights.

Momentum

10 December, 2007
editing, screenwriting
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Screenwriters are told not to put camera directions in scripts. That irritates directors. It is possible to put editing directions in scripts! If you want to read a script with built-in momentum take a look at the script of The Bourne Supremacy:


INT. THE AUDI/REST-STOP -- NIGHT
    BOURNE'S EYES OPENING! -- heart pounding -- springing up --
    alone -- damn, his side hurts -- recoiling from that --
    where is he? -- he's in the car -- looking around and --
   
    HIS WINDSHIELD POV
    AN AUTOBAHN REST-STOP. Gas station. Sleeping trucks.
   
    BACK TO
    BOURNE catching his breath -- shifting away from the pain
    in his rib -- checking his watch -- but what the hell is
    that on his sleeve? -- fuck, it's BLOOD -- JARDA's blood --
   
EXT. AUTOBAHN REST-STOP -- NIGHT
    BOURNE out of the car fast -- careless -- wrong -- not even
    checking who's watching -- pulling off the shirt -- tearing
    it off -- throwing it down and --
    Standing there. In the weird light. A big bruise ripening
    on his side. Looking around.
    It's okay. Nobody's watching. But, shit, man...
    Get it together.
   
INT. PEUGEOT -- AUTOBAHN -- NIGHT
    Streaking along. BOURNE back to his mission.

I’m not sure if I could choose between writing scenes like this or editing scenes like this!

Flashback

9 December, 2007
screenwriting
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When writing scripts, Syd Field says that you should only use flashbacks when there is no other way to give the facts to the audience. Flashbacks should happen in response to a character’s emotional state. They have been triggered by something in the present that reminds them of an extreme emotion in the past.

The rule of only using flashbacks when there is no other way reminds me of a similar rule about dialogue. Screenplays are about telling stories with pictures. Only use dialogue if the information cannot be got across with pictures alone.

LDTV

6 December, 2007
Alex, film making, Links
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I may have a camera that can shoot HD, software and a computer that can edit HD, but my SD TV and LD iPod and iTunes is good enough for me.

In an article over at Roughly Drafted, Daniel Eran Dilger argues that Low Definition content will be wildly more popular than HD. LD is what people watch on iPods, what they convert their DVDs to, what whiles away their time on YouTube (and YouPorn).

HD appeals to less people here in the UK. In the US, SD is associated with broadcast TV at a ratio of 4:3. In the UK over 90% of SD broadcast is at 16:9 – widescreen. That means that the vast majority of TVs in the UK are widescreen TVs. The PAL TV standard also has a higher visual resolution (with a lower temporal resolution to make up the difference) than NTSC. It follows that most consumers will not see much difference between a vertical resolution of 525 lines (the 51 remaining lines are used for other stuff) and 720.

Of course as people replace their TVs, they’ll get TVs with chips that can interpret any HD signal. They’ll be scaled onto LCDs and Plasmas of many different resolutions. 95% of the audience won’t see the difference. They certainly won’t see the need to pay extra for HD content when SD is good enough.

720 by 405 24 times a second is enough for almost everyone. The rest aren’t enough to support one HD on shiny discs.

Control

5 December, 2007
Links, philosophy, screenwriting
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You can find ideas that could be explored in screenplays in odd places.

The following quote comes from an article on the search for a new manager for England’s football team:

One can only truly love someone if they exist to some degree outside the sphere of your control; if in a relationship you can dominate someone completely how can they offer salvation? How can they place their self between you and death?

To see the rest of the article (with no further thematic material) visit The Guardian’s website – you may need to register for free to read more. Alternatively, you can read the Google cached version while it lasts.

Reality

4 December, 2007
screenwriting
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I’ve always said: “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”

When basing screenplays on biography or events from your own life, Syd Field says

You can use this particular experience as the starting point in your story, but as you go through the preparation process, you’ll find that you want to hold on to the “reality” of the experience; you want to be “true” to the situation or incident. Most people find it hard to let go of the experience. But often, you’ve got to let “reality” go in order to dramatize it more effectively.

I liken it to climbing a staircase: the first step is the actual experience, the second step is increasing the dramatic potential of a story, and the third step is integrating both of the previous steps to create a “dramatic reality.” If you remain too true to “who did what” in the “real” order of the experience, it usually ends up as a thin story line with little or no dramatic impact. Do not feel “obligated” to remain “true” to reality. It doesn’t work. The “reality” of an event may, and often does, get in the way of the dramatic needs of your story.
[…]
The actual history of the event has to be maintained but you don’t have to be true to the emotional, day-to-day events, leading up to the historical incident. Just look at All The President’s Men, Ray, Erin Brokovich and JFK. History is only the starting point, not the end point.

Of course this also applies to game shows, documentaries, news reports…

Politeness

29 November, 2007
Alex
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I used to spend a lot of time watching TV. There were certain shows I couldn’t miss. I had to get home in time to see them. Then I picked up a little motto from a song by The Lemonheads called ‘The Outdoor Type’:

“I can’t go away with you on a rock-climbing weekend;
what if something’s on TV and it’s never shown again?
It’s just as well I’m not invited; I’m afraid of heights.
I lied about being the outdoor type…”

I realised that everything will be available one day, so why bother catching it the first time it is on. Before iTunes and DRM, I thought that there were going to be so many channels that all TV will need to be repeated many times to fill up all those schedules. Now I can see that all TV will be available to me online.

My VHS player broke four or five years ago, and I never got around to fixing it. I learned do without timeshifting and archiving films and TV shows. I recently got a hard-disc-based digital recorder. I can pause TV, record two channels at once, record whole series of favourite shows.

Now it is a lot easier to be polite. When my flatmate wants to catch up or have a meal with me, she doesn’t want our conversation interrupted by the TV. Now that I don’t need to miss anything, I can stop watching TV and chat for as long as I want. My old priorities weren’t right, this new box has made it a lot easier to do the right thing.