| Ultimately, rewriting is a way of moulding your original, often "flabby" idea into something altogether more mature and skilful, hopefully without losing sight of that first fleeting thought that set your crazy mind in motion and got you where you are today. It's that initial spark that should drive your work and the countless rewrites that follow. Hopefully your development team will also try to remain faithful to the original concept but sometimes.. they don't. In my opinion, you need to know where to draw the line on rewriting or risk doing more harm than good. It's a hard pill to swallow but the truth is, you may never be able to attain total perfection, but you can certainly push an idea as far as it's going to go. That's when you stop and get out before you do damage. But there is one slight problem here. There's nothing stopping the studio bringing in someone else after you've toiled away and make them do the damage for you. ACT THREE: The Polishers Sometimes it may not even be the studio that are to blame but the eager new writers themselves who are so desperate to make their mark, they totally ignore the draft and notes they were given because they are not just in it for the polish money but primarily a "credit". When this happens, you can kiss your script goodbye. It's always hard to let your beloved screenplay go into the hands of someone you've never met but it happens everyday in Hollywood and is just a way of life. To be honest, it's not all bad. Sometimes you do need that fresh objective view, and sometimes these guys (or gals) really work wonders, but it all depends on too many different factors, factors that you have absolutely no control over - unless you are fortunate enough to be directing the movie too. The ideal situation is for everyone to remain faithful to the original idea, so if a polisher comes back with a new draft that has veered too far off track, the development team can gently coax them back in again. But some development teams after working on a project for so long confuse getting a new idea that contradicts the initial concept as "better" simply because it is fresh. They don't seem to understand that it is only fresh because they have been reading the same project for over a year! At that point, changing the action lead to a dancing frog might sound appealing.. it's all a matter of perspective. That is why spending too long in development can sometimes be a bad thing. Just as writers need to know where to draw the line, so do the people in charge. If they paid for that original idea they should stick to it through thick and thin, push it as far as it's going to go but remain true. That way you all know you have achieved something. It's easy to cut scenes, backstory, add new characters etc. but a lot of the time this just drags you down a different path - and not necessarily a better path, just a newer one. But if that's the case, what is a writer to do? Switch off and just go through the motions? Lie back and think of England? I hope not. Although something tells me judging by some of the recent crop of |
formulaic films hitting our screens that a great many writers do. I would even go as far to say that some writers most likely begin their project in a detached frame of mind, lacking heart and commitment and quite clearly in it just for the pay check. Unfortunately it's this lack of passion and originality that dumbs our films down and inadvertently makes audiences expect less. The amount of times I have debated plot points that were conceived as "too complex". For God's sake, give the cinema going public some credit. They've got brains, they can work it out, and if not by themselves then by discussing the movie afterward with their friends. It's this kind of post-interaction that cinema as an art form is all about. If we take that away, all we'll be left with is homogenized stories without a soul. Now I'm not saying that every film needs to be as dazzlingly intricate as The Usual Suspects or Memento, but the simple fact is, as a general rule of thumb, audiences love to guess what's going to happen next, because if they get it right they feel clever, and if they get it wrong, the film gets the credit and their expectations for what is to follow go up. So, despite what development notes come your way in the future, my best advice is to try and keep a clear head, shoot from the hip and shape your screenplay into what it was always meant to be. DENOUEMENT Sometimes you get lucky and find a team that works well, that share the same vision, whom you can trust will see you and your idea through to the end. But a lot of the time you don't have that luxury. It may be a cut throat business but rest assured there are "real" people out there if you look hard enough. Yes, believe it or not, some producers actually want the same thing you do, to tell an engaging story and affect people's lives. You just have to understand that in order to realize your dream, you may have to adapt it along the way. Just knowing this may be a little unsettling but trust me, it's not the end of the world. So the next time you sit in front of your computer and finally summon up the courage to type "Fade in", imagine how your story will look on the big screen. It might not get there exactly as you had originally hoped.. but then again, it just might! |