Writers have an unfortunate tendency to consider themselves writers only. In the film business—especially in the fact end of it—that’s a luxury they can’t afford. The more they know about all phases of production, the more likely they are to survive. Indeed, a host of the brethren have carried this to the point of abandoning the exclusively “writer” classification altogether, in favor of the increasingly common tag of “hyphenate”—writer-director, writer-producer, or even writer-producer-director.
There’s a sound reason for this switch. In the first place, the hyphenates make more money. But beyond that, screen writers get almighty tired of seeing their scripts butchered. By adding directing and/or producing to their repertoire, they insure themselves greater control over the films they write.
Even if you have no desire to produce or direct, however, it’s still worthwhile to learn all you can about production. Why? Because the more you know, the better you can tailor your script to a producer’s needs. Particularly, you can to a marked degree help to hold down the budget, simply by limiting the requirements you set up and simplifying the way you handle your material.
A writer with such skills is ever and always in demand. So here we go, with a first lesson in regard to at least a few of the things you should know about …
Actors: As every fact film producer soon learns, amateurs generally can carry out actions satisfactorily—especially if said actions are those the actor performs in life, as when a plumber plays the role of a plumber. Often, however, these sterling citizens find it almost impossible to deliver lines well. They’re also prone to tire of the whole tedious business of filmmaking as soon as the glamor wears off—whereupon, disastrously, they may quit in the middle of a picture.
How to avoid such? Hold Amateurs’ lip-sync dialogue to a minimum; substitute voice-over narration wherever possible.
Regards action, stick as close as possible to the kind of thing found in Amateur’s life experience, so that the necessity of retakes—and consequent irritation—is reduced to a minimum.
Professional actors? They tend to be hams, too often—lazy about learning lines; more interested in building their own parts than in fitting into the needs of the production; difficult to work with.
Especially are these things true if Professional is working with an inexperienced or unsure director, or on a job he considers beneath his dignity. Should you perchance be called in to help remedy the situation, try these ploys: (a) flexibility—stand ready to change lines if need be; (b) flattery—do your best to convince the ham that your lines show him off to best advantage; (c) lines that play—you find out about this the hard way, by having your harelipped friends read them into a tape recorder … then playing them back to see if they really sound like people talking.
Cutting (also known as editing): Film editors are unsung geniuses of the business. The miracles they can perform with inept writing, directing, and acting are absolutely incredible, upon occasion.
You can help your film’s editor by providing him (in the script) with plenty of inserts, cutaways, reaction shots, and the like, so he has footage available to cover the errors and ineptitudes that crop up in any picture.
It’s to your advantage, in the course of all this, to learn as much as you can about Editor’s problems. How do you learn? You study such volumes as Livingston’s Film and The Director, Mascelli’s The Five C’s of Cinematography, Gaskill and Englander’s How To Shoot a Movie Story, Bare’s The Film Director, Reisz and Millar’s The Technique of Film Editing, Dmytryk’s On Film Editing, Arijon’s Grammar of the Film Language, and the like. After which, it doesn’t hurt a bit to spend any spare time you can manage hanging around the cutting room, watching the viewer/Moviola as Editor runs his work print back and forth and makes his choices, and listening to any gems of wisdom he may let drop.
Directors: Start with the assumption that the director knows a lot more about the film business than you do. So, learn from him, and don’t get your feelings hurt when he hacks up your pet sequence.
On the other hand, if you’ve worked in a clever handling, Director just may use it. As a matter of fact, your only real headache is to figure out a way to make sure Director actually has read the script before he starts changing or shooting it.
As with actors, flattery can be a good gimmick here. Tell the Great Man you want to learn from him (true enough!) and therefore will beat your brow on the floor before him if only he’ll go over the script with you, line by line.
Many of the best directors will want you close by their warm side while they prepare for shooting. It will be a time to test how well you’ve done your homework, believe me. Action that previously existed only in your script now quite possibly will be diagrammed in relation to actual sets or locations. Weak sequences will fall by the way. Strong will be rearranged. Characters will appear and disappear and take on new depth or coloration; and you’ll be asked, “But would Seth do that?” until you’ll swear your skull will split.
Will the final script that results be better than your original? Maybe; maybe not.
But one thing’s for sure: You will definitely have learned by it.
Lighting: The bigger the area you ask a crew to light, the more men and equipment and power it’s going to take. While there are tricks old pros can use to achieve the impossible, you’re really sticking your neck out if you ask them to make a factory interior look like an MGM imperial ballroom. Try, instead, to use your head to come up with something just as striking that makes its points via closeups, or a couple of exteriors followed by a quick dissolve to a modest office.
Locations: For greater realism and in order to avoid the problems inherent in set construction, a high proportion of pictures today are shot “on location”—that is, in a “real” environment, away from the sound stage.
But before you specify location shooting, remember that (a) transportation can prove both costly and a headache, (b) bad weather can bomb you out, cataclysmically, (c) extraneous sound can make anything but silent shooting impossible, and (d) an eight-foot ceiling has proved a disaster for many a lighting crew.
Movement: Two key elements move in any picture: the actors, and the camera. Though control of each is fundamentally the problem of the director, you can add greatly to your popularity if you’ll (a) learn the nature of the so-called “imaginary (180°) line” which limits camera movement in the interests of maintaining screen direction; (b) master the simple principles of overlapping movement that help to create an effect of continuity from cut to cut; and (c) make it a habit to act out yourself anything you intend to ask the actors to do, so you’re sure it’s physically possible. Believe me, getting people on and off screen, following action, reversing, dealing with obstacles—all are more complex than you might imagine. But you can take them in stride if you’ll study the books mentioned in the section on cutting, above. Even better, augment the books by sneaking onto a set whenever you can, in order to observe the principles in action.
Sets: Building a set is a difficult, expensive, time-consuming business. The more you can work with what’s readily available, avoiding elaborate construction, the happier everyone will be. Really, it’s amazing what you can accomplish with a couple of flats, a curtain, some molding, and a few pieces of second-hand furniture! And the resources of any studio scene dock can enable you to perform virtual miracles, budgetary and esthetic.
Set-ups: In lighting any interior, four basic types of light are involved: the key light, the back light, the fill light, and the background lights. Eventually you’ll learn the whys and wherefores of each of these.
The important thing right now, however, is that you understand that every change in lighting takes time and thus costs money. It is no accident that so many old-timers state flatly that the secret of staying within the budget lies in cutting the number of set-ups.
Consequently, if you can plan ways to limit set-ups by means of simplified sets, narrowed range of action, reduced number of locations, “cheater cuts,” or the like, producers will love you and you’ll get more work.
Sound: It’s always quicker, easier, and cheaper to shoot silent. The moment sound comes in, you not only have extra personnel and equipment, but the problems that arise from power lines, inept actors, traffic noise, planes passing overhead, air conditioning machinery, and (if you’re outdoors) the whisper of the spring breeze in the microphone.
Does this mean abandoning sound forever, then? No. Even filming under the worst possible circumstances, voices can be dubbed in later, or voice-over narration substituted.
But it does stand to reason that the writer who’s conscious of the problems involved may do a more satisfactory job than one who isn’t.
Video: Videotaping is a cost-cutter that encourages cost-cutting—and that can be expensive.
This is another way of acknowledging that video offers the filmmaker—and the scriptwriter—fantastic new opportunities. Shot at minimal expense, with limited crew and low-budget staging, it makes it possible for the small operator to mount productions which previously would have involved major money.
Because this is so, producers sometimes are tempted to try to slash expenses even further. Whereupon, the finished product may not only reflect same but, on occasion, turn into pure disaster, as witness a TV museum mini-series I scripted a couple of years ago. To cut costs, the producer eliminated background lighting. In consequence, the foreground subjects lost definition and separation, and the overall effect became one of blurred confusion, client outrage, and cancelled contracts.
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If you think this covers all the ground of what a writer should know about filmmaking, or even a fraction of the headaches he’ll encounter—don’t kid yourself! From beginning to end, this business is a torturous if fascinating nightmare—with the scriptwriter getting the blame whenever anything goes wrong.
The solution? Time, study, experience.
Meanwhile, however, you might like to take advantage of veteran scriptwriters’ techniques; learn by studying the way they tackle writing problems.
You’ll find it all in the next chapter: Lessons from the Pros.