Novelist vs Screenwriter vs Playwright

I've written stage plays, screenplays and novels with nearly the same success, and lack thereof, so I thought a comparison might make for a nice distraction while we wait for Dances With Films submissions to get rolling. I have no doubt arguments will abound, which is a good thing. Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis.

THE STAGE: "Theatre is dead." That proclamation was made to me by the late, great, set designer, John Paoletti, as we met to discuss the set for a 99-seat production in Los Angeles. Such "Equity Waiver" plays are to theatre what garage bands are to Rock & Roll. This particular play had an all-star cast, so it was a great little garage band – but could only be considered professional by the quality of the work, not the dollars earned. Paoletti designed sets for theatre all over the country. As we talked about this particular production, he was drawing pieces for a play back in Chicago. He worked constantly. In any other profession his labor and skill would have made him a rich man, which is what prompted him say what he did. "Theatre is dead, and television killed it."

I had no argument against it. Still don't. But the skills of the stage, the lessons learned in front of a live audience night-after-night are invaluable when it comes to film and television – where the artist may never hear or feel the audience's initial response to their work. In film, 1920 is ancient history. You're considered a scholar if you know what Thomas Edison might have to do with Steven Spielberg's success.

Theatre can trace her roots back to before God. An understanding of what moved an audience in ancient Egypt, or Greece, or what made Italians in the 16th Century laugh, or how Theatre survived the hard economic times of English reconstruction – and how these same human storytelling techniques have worked in our day – give a writer a deep pool of knowledge to work from. Damn the marketing people and their test screenings – a writer with a strong theatre background has 3,000 years of research and feedback from billions of people to draw from. Better still if this writer has spent time on stage performing other writer's work. The best teacher is the instant feedback of a paying audience.

In writing for the stage you are capturing the power and majesty of the human voice, from kings to paupers, the supremacy of the words are yours to wield. Sure, you might write in a deus ex machine, but without the deity to speak from atop the device, the special effect isn't much good.

With minimal stage effects and limited settings, a playwright is forced to entertain and educate with nothing but words and the interaction of characters – but this is the basis of all writing, isn't it? The stage demands a higher level than books or film, and is the only medium that offers the immediacy of the moment. An actor speaks the words, the audience hears them, and the playwright is there to gage the reaction. Quickly, the author learns what resonates and what doesn't. Soon, he or she can play the audience like a violin. Actors often say they can literally control how an audience breathes, but it is the writer that gave them the setting and words to exercise that power.

THE SCREEN: No critic or academic can speak intelligently about film if they haven't rolled up their sleeves and done the grunt work of production. If they haven't worked as a grip, a producer, and director, then they have no real idea of where the writer fits into the picture. The production crew see the writer as someone who lounges around with the director and producers, or who might talk to the cast from time-to-time. More often than not, they have no idea who the writer is at all. He, she or they might not ever come to the set. The director and producers, working with the cast, may make last minute tweaks to the script, and so the writer is seen as superfluous.

But a good producer or director knows what the writer has done. Months or years prior to production, they've been working together to turn blank paper into living, breathing characters in a real world. The author can be so cavalier on the set because their hard work was done long before anyone else had a job on this project. If the script started as speculative – written first and sold later – then the author has worked more hours on the film than anyone else has or will.

But if the screenwriter faces the blank page, he or she does not face a blank audience. They are writing for other professional in the business for whom a shorthand has evolved.

INT. NEW YORK APARTMENT – DAY
Brad's studio apartment is as much of a wreck as his life.

That's all the writer needs to include to give those crew members who work so hard during production the picture of what they need to achieve.

Some writer's find it hard to learn this shorthand, and I think their work suffers for it. They lack trust in their designers, directors and cast to do the detective work necessary to flush out the details of the world everyone is trying to create. The designers are going to read the entire script. They will know what kind of wreck Brad's life is, and can then apply their talents to reflecting this in the set. No spoon-feeding necessary, and by allowing more input from various sources, the finished product has a depth to it that a spelled out description might lack.

This type of writing, once mastered, can become a lot of fun. All the author need deal with are characters and story – the meat and potatoes. They have a cast, crew and editors to take care of the minutiae. The art of screenwriting is to use the least amount of words to make a clear image pop into the minds of trained, professional, readers – and to be able to make them all see a similar picture.

NOVELS: You're a control freak? You want to be the auteur? Forget about film, become a novelist. Here you are the art department, the cast, crew, editor, director and craft service person picking up the trash – and yet, if you are successful, you will still have to collaborate with editors, marketing people, agents, etc.

The novelist faces a blank page in both the creation and production of their work. All they know about their reader is they speak the same language as what's on the page – and yet, the author has to put the same story into every reader's head. They have no soundtrack. No special effects. No magic of the theatre. Nothing between their brain and their audience's but the written word.

I can tell you, having made a feature film (on film) and written two novels, they are comparable in their tedium. An editor will work for sometimes an hour or more on a single cut of a film that flashes by in one 24th of a second and is never seen by the audience again. An author will do the same with a word in a sentence.

An animator once told me that cartoon characters must blink when they turn their heads, or they don't look real. A novelist once said, "if you use the word 'suddenly' then whatever follows, isn't."

With all of these differences, what I'm finding as I work in all three media is how they are becoming more similar. Modern novels require less description than their 18th-early 20th century counterparts. Perhaps it is because television has shown us so much of the world that the details of exotic locations or people are now common knowledge. Perhaps it's because we have so many ways to fill our free time, that a book had better cut to the chase or it will never compete with the explosions and spectacle of the big screen or video games. What theatre that has been successful lately has been based on movies – just as they used to be based on histories or commonly known tales.

No matter what medium a writer chooses to work in, they seek the same result – resonance. They must touch the reader in a way that it amplifies within them. That's the art of it, and it's the same for all. The craft is what will differ.

Thanks for reading.

...And We're Back

It's getting close to that time of year again. Dances With Films will be putting out a call for entries soon, which means screening will start shortly thereafter, so once again this blog will take you behind the scenes of our selection process.

For those of you new to the blog, the idea is this: Year-after-year we see patterns in the kind of movies floating around the festival circuit. For several years it was the Romantic Comedy that was neither – written and directed by someone with serious issues with their opposite gender. Twenty-somethings drinking too much is always a favorite bad idea. And let's not forget the million mocumentary movie march.

I get tired of seeing the same kind of film over and over, so this blog is selfish on my part. I want future filmmakers to read about what's not working and fix their scripts before it's too late. If you're thinking about making a movie, I hope you'll read every entry and take notes. You might not make the best film ever made, but you certainly won't make the worst.

If you're submitting this year: no, I will not mention titles or names; yes, I might drop enough hints to let you know I'm talking about your film – but only if I'm saying good things. When I talk about what's not working, it's more about trends. If one movie does something that doesn't work, good for them. Failure usually means the artist is trying something new and difficult. Repeated failures by multiple artists means something is wrong with the collective standards. If you read my criticism about a movie that goes on too long, and you think I've just told the world that your movie sucks – trust me, I'm talking about several films with the same problem.

What if you aren't a filmmaker? Not to worry, I believe strongly in artistic cross-training. My degree is in acting/directing theatre, and my current projects are novels. The skills in one discipline definitely translate to another, and I try to point out the similarities.

Case in point. The other night at the Dances With Films alumni get together we were talking about submission fees. We all agreed that filmmakers should include in their initial budgets a film festival category – submission fees, travel, promotion, etc. Among my novelist friends it has become commonplace to budget any advance money you might get toward promotions, travel, conferences, etc.

Okay, not the best example of artistic cross-training, but it's the best I can do on the off season.

TIP OF THE MONTH: If you are using one of the few services out there to submit to multiple festivals with just one submission form, consider contacting the festivals individually and asking for a discount. The services take a large percentage of your submission fee from the festival, so you might save anywhere from 10-25% by asking to submit directly. Sure, it's more work for you, and many festivals might not take direct submissions – but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Thanks for reading.

The Never Ending Need for Independence

Dances With Films festival is going on all around me as I type this on an unfamiliar laptop graciously provided by Hula Post Production. A few feet from me filmmakers are shooting a 2-Minute 2-Step movie on the Canon 5D Mark II cameras that will be seen on the big screen tomorrow night. I'm having to pause between sentences so the clicking of the keyboard doesn't show up on their soundtrack. In a few minutes I might have to run up to do a Q & A with a filmmaker for a movie I saw months ago, but the audience just experienced. I say all of this as much to set the scene as to beg forgiveness for typos, grammar mistakes, or thoughts that wonder off into the abyss.

I've written before on the importance of gatekeepers like agents, producers, film festivals, distributors, publishers, etc. to filter the massive amounts of raw artistic product down to what is of some kind of professional quality - but as important as these bar-raisers to the artistic community are, it is equally important that there be a way to work around them.

Business and the Arts have always been siblings. Squabbling, fighting, dysfunctional, jealous, loving, horrible brothers and sisters. Neither can exist for long without the other. Even in an Artless world, Business would need artists to help package and promote their products. When the product is the Art, then the rivalry gets even more intense.

One of the biggest thorns in this relationship's side is how they deal with risk.

In Business risk is to be avoided. Sure, they pay lip service to the saying "Nothing ventured nothing gained" or "High Risk, High Reward" but at the corporate level there are stockholders to consider. Every business plan must include a risk management assessment. Sure, if an executive takes a big risk that pays off s/he is the hero of the day - but no one has ever been fired for playing it safe. Don't make waves, and you'll have a long and happy job in the corporate world. And there is nothing wrong with that.

In the Arts, bland is death. Doing what has been done before, in the same way that it has been done before guarantees you a short, not-so-profitable career. We all know Picasso, but who knows the artists who today paint just like Picasso? We all know Star Wars, but who made a lifetime's worth of money making the many derivative space operas of the late 70's/early 80's?

So, the Artist struggles hard to create a work that is unique in some way. This is of course, impossible, given the 100,000 years of human existence - chances are, whatever an artist might think of, it's been done before. Still, they apply their creativity, sweat, blood and tears to make something unique.

When they are done, they present it to their brother/sister, Business, to say, "Hey, let's get this out to an audience."

And Business's first question is, "What's it like?"

"It's like, what it is," says the Artist.

"Yes, it's very good, and quite unique, and I personally like it - but it's not like anything that's come before it."

"Yes," says the Artist, "Exactly! It's that great?!"

"No, it's not great. I have to present this to a committee and tell them what kind of budget we'll need and how much return we can expect."

"Yeah, so?"

"I need to know; is this the next Harry Potter? Is it the next Notebook? What is it?"

"It's the next new thing," says the Artist.

"I've got kids to put through college," says the Businessman. "I can't risk that on the next new thing. I need another version of the last successful thing."

And so it goes.

Stepping into this void are the Independents.

They say to the Artist, "I'm small. I'm light. I don't have a board of directors, just a few crazy investors who want to make the kind of high rewards that come with high risk. I can see your vision, and I have the means to present that to the world."

And the Artist says to the Independent, "Really? What have you done that I'd know?"

And so it goes.

Somehow from this chaos, the content - call it art, call it product, call it popcorn entertainment or literature - flows like water to the sea. Some of it falls from the sky directly on its destination. Some of it falls as snow on the highest mountain and may not find the ocean for centuries. Some falls in a desert and will not reach an audience until it has evaporated and fallen again.

But wherever you look, it is there. The Art. The Ocean, the rivers, the rain. Struggle though we might to see our projects through, we know there is a way. No obstacle is too great to stop the flow. That's why Business builds waterwheels and power generators. They profit from the flow.

Thanks for reading.

Luck Be A Socially Responsible Person of Either Gender Tonight

The slogan for this year's Dances With Films Festival is "Luck Is For Sissies."

I would have suggested "Luck is for Suckers," myself, since we do screen in West Hollywood and don't want to hear from the Sissy Anti-Defamation League. I bare witness that the festival has never discriminated against, nor passed judgment on, any individual, group, film, or submission based on how an individual and/or member of that group throws a baseball, catches any ball for sports, punches, dresses, argues, dances, or in anyway interacts with the outside world in a manner that might be construed as "Sissy," "Sissified," "Wussie," or in the case of male individuals and/or members of said groups, "like a girl" – which is especially not the case, since young women have proven themselves quite capable of accomplishing traditionally labeled "masculine tasks" with as much skill and grace as any of their male counterparts.

Whereas, "Luck is for Suckers" is perfectly acceptable since suckers have never bothered to organize a lobbying group for themselves – though several of them have paid dues for false organizations via Nigerian internet con artists.

So, forget all of that. Let's talk about luck.

Some people think that luck is something that comes to the lucky. They wait for luck to come to them. Other's claim that you can make your own luck.

The military says that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. This seems to be a perfectly legitimate equation for defining luck. If an opportunity comes a long that you're not prepared for, you can't take advantage of it. You might say that you weren't lucky, but in fact, you weren't prepared.

By the same token, if you are prepared, but you sit on your couch watching the Academy Awards, or reading the latest new hot author, and grumble that "those people just got lucky," then you have not been working to create opportunities for yourself.
For those of you who remember your grade school algebra, by the Transitive Property of Equality:

If Luck = Preparation + Opportunity, and both Preparation and Opportunity can be made possible, then by a = b and b = c then a = c, Luck can be made.

That is not to say that if you prepare yourself with the skills of your chosen art form, and if you get out there to make all the opportunities that you can, that everything else will be easy. The thing about working in a glamorous, fun, high profile profession is that everyone wants to do it – or at least it seems like everyone. There is a mob of people out there who are just as prepared as you are, and working just as hard to make their own opportunities. And for every one thousand of them, there are only a few opportunities available.

I think of it sometimes like getting a rebound in the NBA. Everyone there has skills. Everyone is blocking out, positioning themselves for the best chance of getting the ball after a missed shot, but if the ball doesn't bounce their way, they don't get it.

Still, two kinds of people get more rebounds than the rest. Some have a team concept. Four guys making sure the other team can't get the ball, while one on ours does. Others have that uncanny skill, that's close to magic. They seem to know where the ball is going to go, and they get themselves there no matter what. To their equation for luck, you can add Insane Talent.

Your job is to figure out for yourself how you can best create your own opportunity. How you can follow the ball, to put yourself not where it is now, but where it's going to be when you get there.

Work on your skills. Make your opportunities. Then count on your talent.

Thanks for reading.

Guest Blog - To DWF and Beyond!

We're all busy getting the festival together... and, for those of you who would still like to participate, I believe the 2-Minute 2-Step deadline has been extended. Check the link to your right.

So while we get all of our ducks in a row, I thought I'd bring you a guest blog from The Shumway Brothers. They are two times alumni of the festival and wrote to us recently about there experience here and how it helped them down the line.

Enjoy --

In June 2009 we finished our 5 year project called "Enigma." Now we had a decision to make: which festival should be our world premiere? We had premiered a previous film, “Over the Moon” at Dances with Films and the experience had been great – it even won “audience choice!” We decided that DWF was the best place to premiere Enigma. After a wonderful, problem free screening, we repeated history with another “Audience Choice” award!

Wow! Our world premiere had gone without a hitch! The festival was fun, and now we were excited to do this a bunch more times! Awesome! So we got accepted to more festivals, and were all ready to have the same experience we had at DWF... And then our eyes were opened.

We had been to “Dances” twice, and twice had a great experience. So we thought that all festivals would be like “Dances.” And then we discovered…not all film festivals are created equal!



Communication is key with film festivals. You have to know what’s going on to get the most out of the event. “Dances” takes this a step further with the orientation meeting. Here we got the chance to meet other filmmakers before the fest. At the meeting, the DWF staff told us what we should be doing to help promote our films and the fest. They covered postcards, posters, and they planted great ideas about S.W.A.G! (You know. $h!t we all get!). So we got our stuff and saw how well it worked and how much better it made the entire experience.

This meeting prepared us better than we realized. At many of our future festivals we took what we learned from DWF and applied it. We were quite lucky to have received this preparation at our first fest and not our last. At every fest we went we were more prepared and knew what and how to advertise our film and in turn we put more people in the seats.


"Enigma" has now been to 18 festivals, we have been awarded 20 festival awards and 16 nominations and it all started with Dances with Films

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The Shumway Brothers are:


Jason Shumway

Jason Shumway has been making movies since the young age of 14. After getting his first taste of video editing at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, Jason became an award winning filmmaker while studying in J. Everett Light Radio/Television program. For college Jason was lucky enough to be accepted to the prestigious University of Southern California. In this top rated film program Jason directed eight films and crew on many more. He has recently worked on shows for G4TV and NBC. Currently he is a staff editor at E! Entertainment Television. Jason produced the indie Feature Film “Bloomington” Premiering at Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco on June 23rd 2010.


Matt Shumway

Matt graduated with distinction from Art Center College of Design. There he created his award winning film “Over the Moon.” That film led him to Rhythm and Hues Studios where he works as an Animation Supervisor. His feature film credits include X2, Garfield 1 & 2, Chronicles of Narnia, A Night at the Museum, The Golden Compass, The Incredible Hulk, and Land of the Lost. Matt was nominated for and Annie Award in 2006 for his work on Aslan for Narnia. He is currently the Animation Supervisor for Cabin in the Woods, A Drew Goddard / Joss Whedon Film due out Jan 14th 2011.


www.enigmathemovie.com
www.frontier-studios.com
www.facebook.com/enigmathemovie

Hang In There

I know I didn't post anything this Friday. I'm working on getting a guest blogger.

But thanks for dropping by.

What Are You Crying About?

Stay in the entertainment industry long enough and you'll run across at least one actor, writer, director, cinematographer, or producer who has gotten bitter. They haven't worked in a long time, and you know right away from talking to them that they aren't likely to work again. They have a chip on their shoulder about the business, to which everyone's reaction is not to knock it off, but just walk away.

Sure, we all get angry sometimes. We've all had our "what are they thinking" tirades, but these are superficial – or they should be. If that anger is allowed to fester and seep under the skin, then it becomes bitterness, and that is fatal to an artist.

Some things to keep in mind that might help get you through the bad times:

No one forced you into this. The entertainment industry isn't coal mining. You didn't have to get into it to put food on the table so that your father's black lung will be covered by your health insurance and your baby sister could go to college. You're not share cropping. You've chosen a career – which in and of itself is a luxury most people on the planet don't enjoy – that almost never pans out. You knew the chances were close to impossible when you started, and yet you still chose it. Fine. Everyone loves a good hero struggling against all odds, but no one likes a person who picks that life, then complains about it.

It only takes one person to launch a career. That statement is both true and false. It has taken hundreds of people to get you to where you are today – a trained artist. You create your work and do your best to get it out on the market. From there, it takes just one person – the right one person – to say, "I like this" and/or "I can sell this."

What happens if you've gotten bitter and your response is, "Yeah, well, it's about time you opened your eyes to my work!" or "so what?" Suddenly, the one person who liked your work doesn't like you so much – and given that there are thousands of people as good as you who aren't bitter, that one person is going to move on. Guaranteed.

So keep your chin up. See the light. You're living a blessed life whether you know it or not. I can say that because you are reading this blog. That means you can read. You have access to a computer. You have the time to kick back and scan my silly words.

Whenever I run across an artist who is bitter, I'm reminded of the old lines from the stereotypical tough-love Dad.

"What are you crying about? I'll give you something to cry about!"

We are all wonderfully spoiled in this world. Bask in it. Celebrate it. Create some art.

Thanks for reading.