Another Spring and another script from the author of High Desert Psalmist. The synopsis he handed to me a week ago didn't grab me. Someone told me the script was worth a read. I found out what the writer wanted from me prior to reading it. I sensed he had learned some things since our last attempt to work together, so I agreed to read his latest.
If your eyes move side to side as you scan the page as they do when reading a book - it's no good. A screenplay is not a novel. Its non-prose format is not arbitrary. The form serves the medium as a blueprint for film construction. The beats are articulated in a certain manner. Dialogue is concentrated. The white of the page offers the subtext its unwritten place on the page. Visualization occurs as the eyes fly down the center of the page. Turning page after page, scene after scene. One flowing into the next.
I can get through a well written script of 120 pages in 45 minutes. I spent an hour and a half on this 111 pager and didn't make it to the third act. The second act started on page three. Its dozens of pages went on and on, going only to places I've seen before. Places that weren't that interesting the first time around. Situations to which I do not connect. Stories that I do not want to tell.
I really like this guy. I would love to work with him, both for the experience and to give him the opportunity to see his words come to life. But for me, the words have to come off the page. If ain't on the page, it ain't gonna be on the screen. Liking someone or wanting to be part of a film getting made doesn't a good screenplay make.
I'm going to have to pass on this one.
Oh well.
Lastima,
Signore Direttore
1 comment:
bI always believed that a story must be ruthlessly trimmed down and trimmed down and trimmed down to make a movie. Johnny Mnumonic was a short story, yet it easily expanded into a movie. Some movie adaptations of books made it, but most were clumsy....Catch 22 has got to be the best example of a clumsy adaptation. Some have told me that the clumsiness was really "artsiness". No, sorry,it was clumsy, yet superbly shot. I think it, like "Dune" suffered from really bad editing. (Dune was another well shot, well acted, well written, and it too bit off more than it could chew!) "Caligula" suffered from horrid editing.
I am not a movie maker,but I am gradually coming to realize how difficult it is to take a nice story and bring it to life.
TTFN
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