It
is said that a film is made three times: it is written, it is shot and it is
edited. Every time it comes out somewhat different from what the original
intent was. (Hell, quite often the original intent is all together forgotten,
left for dead or just plain abandoned.)
Come
to think of it, the three different stages of the making of a film could
roughly be transferred to the classical three-act structure. There is the first
act: the writing of the script, wherein we set up the central plot lines,
introduce the characters – their flaws, wants and needs – and put the film in
its proper genre.
Then
there's the second act, as it were, the actual shoot: the most arduous,
conflict filled, relationship killing, suicide inducing, no-sleep-no-eat-lots-of-alcohol-and-pills
a director can imagine. And then some. This all inevitably leads up to the
climax of the process, which is the last day of shooting, plus one week of
over-budget pick-up shots that were missed or lost, and then to cap it all off:
the wrap party.
The
wrap party is ostensibly there to celebrate the end of a successful shoot. In
reality, it's the one time that the entire crew can unwind, let their guard
down and go bananas. And they do. There's drinking like the world ends tomorrow,
drugs in the stalls, making out in the corners and shagging on the lawn. (This
is all before the appetizers, mind.)
After
that comes the mellow third act, the easing of the tension, tying up all the
loose ends that is the editing process.
*
As
a screenwriter, you are naturally heavily involved with the first act of this
melodrama – the writing part. I've mostly written with directors and not for
them, so to speak. Meaning that we meet for days and weeks and talk and walk
and I take notes and go home and write and send it off and then more back and
forth via e-mail and then new sessions in conference rooms that drag on forever
and a day with copious amounts of coffee and snacks.
During
this initial part of the making of a film, I am the director's best friend,
drinking buddy, confidante, confessor and priest combined. In my experience
this involves baring your inner-most secrets (most lofty dreams) and get
acquainted with his or her family in general.
However,
slowly people start to trickle in on the meetings. Other voices are introduced
into the conversation. Voices that all have a point of view, helpful advice.
Constructive feedback. A producer, a co-producer. A line-producer,
casting-agent, actors, set-designers, prop-masters and even the odd editor show
up in the heretofore empty conference room. As the project gains funding and
therefore momentum you suddenly find yourself in a room with people demanding
the director's - your (by now) best friend's ear and time, and you hardly know
the half of them. But they know you: you're the originator. The screenwriter.
Your
job at this stage of the development process (sometimes also known as hell)
is to remain utterly calm and to the greatest possible extent remain objective.
Now this might look easy on paper, but in real life it's a proper mind-fucking
you're in for. What you thought were absolute givens: what your character
wanted, what gender it had, background, dreams, the car he or she drove, the
dog she had are now suddenly again - after weeks and months of talking and
writing with and for director – up in the air.
Questions
like: “Can the main character be Nigerian instead of Norwegian?”, “What if he's
a woman?”, “Can the castle not be a two-room apartment in the Bronx?”, “What if
she is an alien vampire, instead of a Colombian aid-worker?”
And
so on, and so on. You have to listen to these people, because no. 1 (2 and 3)
they have the money. Without the money, no film. Also, these
voices, (most often the voices of producers), have an irritating propensity to
actually know what they're talking about. Sad to say, but they're good, and you
better listen.
So
your job suddenly becomes not sitting alone in a room with your best mate
dreaming up great stuff, but listening, taking notes, going to meetings and
listening to people – a dizzying array of voices – meaning all the best, but
heavily trampling your love-child: the screenplay.
Now,
I've gone to film school and I've partaken in many workshops and script-labs
and whatnot, but the thing I've never heard taught is how to keep a steady
course under the onslaught of well-meant advice from a dozen voices at once.
This is one of my flaws as a screenwriter. So me sitting here pontificating
sounds a bit strange, at least to my own ears. Let's just say that I'm speaking
from hard-won experience whilst simultaneously writing a note to self.
First
of all: be aware that it is going to happen. This might sound obvious to write
here, but I can't emphasize how important it is to know beforehand that there's
going to be a shitstorm of good advice by people who mean well, but who
unintentionally will rip your story apart. Before taking your first meetings,
anticipate – as well as you can – what the question marks and feedback will be.
Have answers prepared, if not written down.
Secondly:
(and this is the tough part) LISTEN. Listen, because these people are
professionals, they want to make the best film possible, and they usually have
a ton of experience. Experience that is much more far-reaching than yours. They
know about markets, funding, co-production, viewer segments, what's trending,
what's not, what actor is looking for a project, the director of photography
that would be perfect, etc etc. While you have your nose in your pages, deep
down in the story, these guys have the broader view and can steer your project
clear of cliffs, shoals and ice-bergs (read: megalomaniac actors, Armenian
gangsters and Nigerian investors).
But
when you listen, keep that first rule in mind: hold on to the rudder, remember
what your project started with. What was the spark, the passion, the drive, the
endurance to get it all down on paper and shared with the world? What made you
lose your job, get thrown out by your partner, eat spaghetti and ketchup for
months and lose your car? That initial falling in love with the story, the zone
you were in when you wrote it, is what you have to hold on to, explain better
and better, and polish until it is no longer the turd it began its life as, but
a shining diamond.
Listen
with prejudice. Take what you can use, throw out the rest. Argue for your view
and give ground when needed. Choose your battles. (A fine string of clichés
that, but hey, they're clichés for a reason, right?)
It
has been said that a screenplay is never finished – it is abandoned. There's
some truth to that. Whereas a novel can be rewritten ad infinitum, and then
helped through its teething by a wise and considerate editor – a screenplay is
only alone with its maker for a short while and then subjected to a tsunami of
good advice, bullshit, nonsense and wisdom in an extremely confusing maelstrom
of voices.
Yes,
at one point you'll have to abandon it, give it over to the (hopefully)
competent hands of the director and his huge team of professional film-makers:
the crew.
Which,
incidentally, leads us back to that midnight madness, the king hell trumpet of
all orgies, the mother of all bacchanalia: the wrap party.
As
a screenwriter, you were there when it all started, with that little seed, that
original idea for a story. Perhaps a title, or a character, maybe a conflict
set you on your way. You developed it alone, later with the director and then
gradually a huge team assembled to actually make the darn thing happen. Now, a
year later (or ten, give or take) you're invited to the wrap-party. The last
time you saw the crew, they were a disparate group of individuals trying to
come together to make something as a team. After the shoot, they are now a
hardened bunch of team mates that have been through hell and survived it.
They've bonded on a profound level, having faced down all kinds of craziness
and soul depleting work schedules for weeks and weeks. The tension, both sexual
and physical is palpable: this gang have given it their all for a very long
time, suppressing all kinds of desires and hatreds. Now it's time to let it out
and they're a tight-knit bunch of desperadoes by now. You, on the other hand,
are not part of this particular clan anymore. You've taken a holiday, or
perhaps started up a new project, or switched to driving buses. Short of the
long: you're by comparison sane.
Eyeing
you, everyone in the room (when not fucking or fighting) will whisper “who
invited that weirdo?”. Not so fun, but that being said: apart from bare-knuckle
spectator blood sports, nothing beats going to a wrap-party.
The
last act of the making of a film is, of course, the editing. This is the third
time it is “made”. Now the director assembles all his footage and tries to tell
a cohesive story out of all the madness and mayhem that once upon a time began
with words on paper: the screenplay. This is a very quiet period in a film's
birth. I've been called to sets, but rarely, and I've visited editing suites,
but never for any real input. From here on in it's the director, editor and
producer's ball-game, and good riddance.
In
the end, after all that's been voiced, talked about, discussed and fought over
at the script-stage – leading to the insanity of shooting a movie on sets and
out in the world, day and night for weeks and months on end – ending with the
arduous task of assembling all those scenes into a coherent story – hopefully
(when the PR and distributors get their shit together and streamlined), the
finished product will headline the director's name. But in truth it will be a
vast number of different people, from different backgrounds, with different
opinions, credos and points of view that have, in spite of it all, come
together and spoken together: with one voice.
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