by Ben Brady
The film industry is litigious. Production companies have to protect themselves against potential plagiarizers. They are happy to have agents weed out unsuitable material or inept writers because they are normally inundated with scripts from already established writers. If you don’t live in New York or Los Angeles you will have additional trouble finding an agent or dealing with producers: a great deal of such contact has to be personal, and any script sold invariably goes through a revision process that demands your presence.
Whether you try to submit material in person or through the mail, be sure to protect it. Dramas for stage, screen, or television can be registered for copyright before publication by writing for the appropriate application form to Register of Copyrights, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540. You can register ideas, treatments, or formats with the Writers Guild for $10.
A beginner has to face the fact that his ideas and treatments are not going to arouse instant and profound interest. If your interest is in a particular television series, your best bet is to study several episodes carefully and send for any available guidelines from the production company. Ask through an agent or producer (a friend can work wonders) for permission to submit a brief statement of your idea for a story if the series is open for submissions. If your interest is in screenplays, submit a finished script in the same way. Send a premise with the script, but don’t expect to succeed with a premise alone. An established writer can begin the process with an idea or premise because a producer knows his credits. Exceptions always occur to these rules, but that’s what they are—exceptions!
Once you are functioning within the industry, you can then arrange to have your agent set up meetings for you with various companies interested in buying material or can facilitate such meetings through your own contacts. Your agent may submit material for you. In either case, you will present, often verbally, several potential projects. If any of these interest a prospective buyer, you leave a premise or idea behind. If a sale is then made, a very specific sequence takes you through writing a treatment, first draft, and then a revised final draft of a script. What you submit as a first draft may really be your fifth. The same is true of your final draft, which may well be preceded by many earlier versions. Most contracts have a clause reserving the right to cut you off at any point in the process if your story doesn’t develop as expected. Story editors, directors, producers, actors in a production, and other writers are likely to rewrite your script to varying degrees. The Writers Guild regulates these practices and makes sure you get appropriate credit and remuneration according to a negotiated schedule of fees.
Why There Is So Much Weak Writing
You are probably aware of the great number of television shows that fail each year and of the poor quality of many others. Many movies must have made you think afterward, “I could do better than that!” Many may have held you immediately, but left you with a feeling of being had later. Each season is full of technically and directorially excellent films that are dramatically inane.
There are many reasons for this. It is not a problem unique to movies alone: many a best-selling novel has left a reader with the same perception of technically adept inanity, too. Not all writers are good. Some discover particular markets that pay and then write for them regardless of quality. It is not a perfect world.
But there are institutional problems that face the screenwriter and go some distance in explaining the poor quality of much screenwriting. You cannot work in film or television with any assurance that the final script produced will represent your best craft and your vision. Almost invariably it will be rewritten, often extensively. Your interest is protected financially by the Writers Guild, and this “team” effort is taken for granted within approved guidelines. All through this text we have stressed the unity of craft and vision, however, and emphasized again and again that both are inherent and central in drama and are offspring of one particular dramatist. But there is no way such unity can survive a team effort: the vision becomes a blur of visions or is lost altogether in an artificial reworking of the conflict without attention to its inherent inner values. The result is usually the poor quality that we see.
On the other hand, if you write for the legitimate stage you will not make as much as a screenwriter, but you will retain sole legal responsibility for your play, thanks to the Basic Agreements of the Dramatists Guild in New York. The moral of this difference is that the stage continues to produce outstanding playwrights, and most in our century who have written for the legitimate stage, not movies, have done so to avoid compromising their work. Many of the most prominent screenwriters are drawn from the stage; for example, the three outstanding English screenwriters, Robert Bolt, Peter Schaffer, and Harold Pinter, either began as playwrights for the stage or continue to consider that their primary interest. This will go on until the Writers Guild matures into a fully responsible guild for writers. That won’t happen until its writers pay themselves enough respect to demand proper control over their creations. Artistic control and professional competence simply are not commercially separable unless all that is desired is a well-paid mediocrity.
Sometimes particular writers are in vogue and are able to have their scripts filmed with a minimum of meddling. We have a way of remembering those films—their vision hasn’t been blurred nor the point of their craft been lost. This is as true of a script like Robert Towne’s Shampoo as it is of Robert Benton’s Kramer vs. Kramer. It is true of Bergman’s films and films by a number of other prominent European and American directors. Many films attain a high quality of craft and storytelling because their director is also their writer. Director-writers tend to be the equivalent in film of the legitimate stage’s playwright, because both exercise similar control over their scripts.
We don’t intend to discourage you, but it would be wrong to leave a prospective screenwriter unacquainted with the actual working conditions. It is not impossible to have a script go to production without others’ meddling. It is possible to develop into an industry “hyphenate” and control directing and writing, or producing and directing, or some other combination of talents. And it is true that many producers place a premium on high-quality writing. If you want to go on, good! Do it realistically, in hope, with your eyes open.
Glossary of Film Terms
ACTION—1. The development of conflict in a scene and screenplay; 2. the function of movement that takes place in the camera’s view; 3. the emotional content of a line reading, usually found in parentheses under the character’s name.
ANIMATION—The movement of inanimate objects, such as cutouts or puppets, photographed one frame at a time in order to create the impression of action; also used to describe action that is drawn by an artist instead of live.
ANSWER PRINT—The first print of a finished film that combines audio, sound effects, optical effects, and music in a form that is ready to be released.
ART DIRECTOR—The set designer; frequently relied on for choosing locations.
AUDIO—The sound portion of a motion picture.
BACKGROUND (BG)—Sound or properties that are distant from the camera in any given shot.
BACK LIGHT—A light thrown from the rear of the set to give an impression of depth.
BACK LOT—Exterior portion of a studio that contains streets and the façades of buildings commonly used in motion pictures.
BEAT—A significant pause; a momentary increment of time.
BLIMP—Housing in which a camera is placed to muffle the sound of its motor.
BLOWUP—An enlarged film image produced by a laboratory optical process.
BOOM—A mount used to project a microphone or camera over a set. See also DOLLY.
BUSINESS—Description of the movements of the actors in a scene; usually contained in paragraphs written below shots.
CAPER—An adventure film in which characters plot to achieve a goal, as in planning a robbery.
CLOSE SHOT (CS)—This is not to be confused with a close-up. It is a close a
ngle of two or more elements close to the viewer.
CLOSE-UP (CU)—This shot focuses clearly on a single object in a scene, either a person or an object. See also EXTREME CLOSE-UP.
COMPOSITE—A single piece of film with corresponding sound and images.
COMPOSITION—The balance of the artistic elements of a picture.
CONFRONTATION—A moment of conflict in which one force or character tries to reach an immediate goal and the opposing force or character poses an obstacle to it.
CONTINUITY—A comprehensive description of the complete action, scenes, dialogue, and other screenplay elements in the order in which they are to be shown on the screen.
CONTRAST—Creating a comparison of explicit difference in lighting objects or areas for dramatic effect.
CRANE—A type of camera boom.
CREDIT—Any title that acknowledges the contribution of a person to a film.
CURTAIN LINE—The closing speech in an act.
CUT—An instantaneous transition from one shot to the next by splicing the two shots to each other.
CUTAWAY—A form of continuity cutting most discernible in a point of view shot: for example, a character opens a desk drawer and looks in; the following shot shows a gun in the drawer.
CUTBACK—The shot that follows the cutaway.
CUTTER—See EDITOR.
CUTTING—An edited film version of a script designed to maintain a continuous flow of action.
CYCLORAMA—A semicircular backdrop behind a set.
DAY FOR NIGHT—Shooting exterior shots in the daytime with a filter to achieve the appearance of night; when a nighttime shot is actually shot at night, it is called “night for night.”
DENOUEMENT—Another word for the resolution of the plot.
DEUS EX MACHINA—A contrived device used to resolve a problem; a condition that arises when a writer tries to play God and bring something to pass in the play that defies all logic or naturalness and for which the audience has not been prepared.
DISSOLVE—An optical effect of bringing a picture in while collaterally fading the previous picture out.
DOLLY—A wheeled mount upon which a camera is placed for ensuring the smooth movement of the camera within the area of the shot. See also BOOM.
DOLLYING—The movement of the camera on its dolly toward or away from its subject.
DOWN—Reducing the volume of sound (decibel level).
DUB—The application of sounds to the film that were not recorded at the same time the film was shot.
EDITOR—The individual who brings together all the film that has been shot into one composition by selecting, arranging, cutting, and splicing and whose aim is to make the best picture.
EFFECTS—1. Sound effects: separately recorded sounds applied to the film as needed; 2. special effects: visual effects created in the laboratory through animation or other processes.
ESTABLISH (EST)—Shot made to communicate the total atmosphere of a scene or sequence; usually indicated when the settings are complex and contain a number of points of interest.
EXPOSITION—See Chapter 6.
EXTREME CLOSE-UP (ECU)—This is simply a tighter close-up in which a specific object or feature, such as the eyes or mouth of an individual or a ring on someone’s finger, is the subject.
FADE—An optical effect in which the light dims: FADE OUT is dimming to complete darkness; FADE IN goes from a blank screen to a full picture.
FAVORING—Selects the character to be favored in the shot.
FLASHBACK—A shot or sequence that reveals something that occurred in the past.
FOCUS—Achieving sharpness or fuzziness of an image.
FOLLOW—A shot in which the camera follows an individual or specific action as requested.
FOREGROUND (FG)—Voices or properties that appear nearest the camera in a given shot.
FRAME—To arrange the composition of a single picture on a strip of motion picture film; a frame is a single picture.
FREEZE FRAME—To hold one image on a strip of motion picture film by repeating the single frame.
FULL SHOT—This angle is taken at a considerable distance and is used to establish the entire scene for the purpose of orientation.
GAFFER—The chief electrician, whose job is to light the sets as the first cameraman designates.
GAG—A stunt set up by professional stuntmen.
GIMMICK—A device that is uniquely employed to help solve a problem situation.
GRIP—A stagehand who moves and repairs the properties that are used in the shooting of a picture.
GROUP SHOT—A shot that includes four or more characters in the action.
HAND HELD—An effect in which the camera is physically held and moved by the cameraman; the resulting jerky motion, similar to that in newsreel footage, is often used to create an on-the-spot sense of reality.
HEAD-ON SHOT—Straight into the camera.
HIGH ANGLE—When the camera shoots down from above the subject.
HIGH-KEY LIGHTING—When the main light isolates an area that is contrasted sharply and brilliantly with the rest of the set.
HOOK—An incident in the opening of a picture that is used to capture audience attention.
INKY-DINK—A small incandescent lamp that is used to spotlight something.
INSERT—A shot, usually close, of an item, done separately and later inserted into the picture.
JEOPARDY—When the complexion of circumstances is threatening to a character.
JUMP CUT—An effect of jerkiness achieved when a film is spliced so as to leave a gap in what should be continuous movement; sometimes it is the result of negligence or, sometimes, by design because of too little film; it generally occurs when there is a cut in the film that interrupts the action without a corresponding change of camera angle.
KEY LIGHT—The main source of light in a shot.
LAP DISSOLVE—A laboratory process in which one shot fades out as the next fades in.
LEAD—The protagonist or central character.
LIGHTING SETUP—The gaffer’s layout or plan to supply all the necessary setups of shots with the needed light; a major shooting expense.
LIMBO—A shot that has no physical connection with a set or appears to be in space.
LIP SYNC—Dialogue synchronization in which an actor, separately from the shooting of the film, utters the speech by matching it to the filmed lip movements; usually required when the original scene was shot under conditions that made the audio unusable and the lip sync sound is subsequently dubbed in.
LOCATION—A real exterior or interior setting rather than a staged set or the back lot; off the studio lot.
LONG SHOT (LS)—This angle differs from a full shot: though taken from the same long distance of the viewer from the subject, the LS shows only the portion of the scene that the audience is specifically meant to see.
LOOP—A strip of film that is so spliced it can be projected continuously; a loop is frequently used in dubbing (looping) sessions in which actors may be required to repeat their lines over and over in order to lip sync them properly.
LOW ANGLE—When the camera shoots up from below.
MACRO SHOT—An extreme close-up that outlines a small, critical detail in the action.
MAIN TITLE—The listing at the opening of a picture that includes the title and the main contributors to the production.
MATCHING—The necessity that all the elements of a scene remain constant from shot to shot: for example, if an actor is wearing a tie in one shot, it must be there in the next unless we see him remove it; customarily the duty of the script supervisor.
MATCHING SHOT—A transition in which a shot is dissolved to a successive shot that has the same character of composition (e.g., a shot of a running faucet dissolves to a shot of a waterfall).
MATTE—1. A shot in which a background is painted in; 2. the term mask is also used when an optical printer is used to simulate the kind of view that is effected, such as through a keyhole or binoculars.
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MEDIUM SHOT (MS or MED. SHOT)—This angle is neither long nor close; a middle distance from the subject.
MINIATURE—A small-scale rendition of the physical elements that would normally be involved in an actual happening; a cost-saving device prepared by those in charge of special effects.
MISE-EN-SCÈNE—The surroundings or environment of a stage setting.
MIX—Rerecording on one track a balanced combination of the three separate tracks of voices, effects, and music and giving each the desired level of volume.
MIXER—A person who mixes sound.
MONTAGE—A juxtaposition of abbreviated shots, optical effects, or both that produce an effect, such as a sense of the passage of time, the distorted mind of a drug addict, etc.
M.O.S.—“Mit out sound”: the actual utterance of a well-known German cinematographer that took root; silent shots or sequences (filmed without synchronized sound).
MOVIEOLA—A machine used by editors for viewing the picture with sound; can be run forward or backward by foot pressure (Movieola is a brand name).
MUSIC TRACK—A track on which music alone is recorded.
OBLIGATORY SCENE—A confrontation at some point in the play—in many cases, the climax—which has been promised or indicated as a necessary conclusion to the earlier behavior of the parties involved.
OFF SCREEN (O.S.)—The designation for any element or character present in the action but visually excluded by the camera angle.
OVERHEAD SHOT—Looking down at a subject, for instance, at a pool table.
OVER THE SHOULDER—Shooting from behind one person over his shoulder to see the face of another when two characters face one another.
PAN—The movement of the camera, on a pivot, from side to side on a horizontal plane.