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“Screenplay” by Syd Field, 320
pages, Delta; “Selling a Screenplay” by Syd Field, 282 pages, Delta.
Enter with me the world of movie making. Pause. Satisfy your thirst
for creativity. It is as if a pill or drug is in the drinking water.
It exists to quench the thirst of anyone who wants to make movies. A
pill that says making a film is a desirable activity; a pill that
opens a person’s mind to the heights of imagination. Despite this
dream, in the end, you have talent or not. Readers have to understand
that no magic bullet exists that will turn the desire to create a film
into a cohesive story with pictures, words and music that is a film.
 Today video cameras are cheap and not difficult to use. Desktop
editing is equally cheap and, with patience, easy to learn. If you
need help with technique, courses are available in high school,
college, and in film academies. However, not everyone can afford
courses in the tradecraft of making a movie. Do not despair. There is
help, some of which has been around for years. Its value is what you
make of it. Some is found in two paperbacks published by Delta Books.
One is “Screenplay, The Foundations of Screenwriting,” and the other
is "Selling a Screenplay.” Both are by Syd Field. Each is newly
revised and updated.
In his books, Field analyzes many well-known and successful Hollywood
films. He profiles major writers and directors. He uses these as
examples of how the major studios operate and how you, as a budding
filmmaker, should proceed toward your dream. Doing this, he wants the
reader to understand he believes success at the box office is what
defines a film as successful (though anyone with the slightest
interest in film knows that is not always the case.) That is, in his
view, you don’t survive unless you make money.
His favorite films are not always my favorite films. That is my
objection. It may not be yours. In many ways, his books take the place
of Filmmaking 101 at an accredited school. They are for fledgling
filmmakers, those most in need of help. For the neophyte these books
are bursting with information and tips that Field has collected from
writers, directors and producers in Hollywood.
Not many have what it takes to be an accomplished filmmaker. Most need
help getting started. Films start with an idea. The idea then becomes
a screenplay. Looking at independent films it is clear that few know
little of the style and function of a screenplay. As great as a story
may be, if not presented properly it has little chance of success.
Field writes, “Screenwriting is a definite craft, a definite art.” It
means that a person can learn how to do it, usually through trial and
error, and, in some cases, after many failures.
Another of Field’s dictum I like says, “ All drama is conflict.
Without conflict, you have no action; without action, you have no
character; without character, you have no story; and without story,
you have no screenplay.” Seems obvious, right? Yet, it is not
apparent, especially when too many films lack any of these essential
elements.
Here is more good advice from Syd Field. “Every screenplay has a
subject – it is what the story is about. And “Every screenplay
dramatizes an action and character.” Both statements are obvious when
you think them through as a screenwriter struggling to find your way
out of a maze of budding ideas.
Fields is correct when he writes, “Film is a visual medium. You must
find ways to reveal your character’s conflicts visually. You cannot
reveal what you don‘t know.” In many films, the characters talk too
much because the screenwriter cannot seem to move them from one point
to another as easily as he or she might do in a novel or play. In the
theater or in a novel, the writer is able to reveal his or her
characters through speech because they have the time to give the
audience a look inside the hearts and heads of their creations. In a
novel or play, the pace is different, the application of time is
different, and the mood is different. The audience understands it is
how these other disciplines work.
There is more, much more, all seemingly simple, that will surely make
the reader say, “Why didn’t I think of that myself?”
The weaker of the two books is “Selling a Screenplay,” yet it has many
examples and vigorous testimony from major players in Hollywood. Field
discusses agents, attorneys, pitching the script, and television and
movies, vastly different pursuits. The best line in the book comes in
his chapter called The Executives. Of getting a screenplay read, let
alone produced, Field writes, “It’s the biggest crap shoot in the
world.” With that in mind, read, absorb, write and hope that what you
put on paper is the right story at the right time. According to
everything that came out of Sundance this year, small independent
features, mainly dramatic comedies, are in vogue. Usually attainable
at low cost, distributors seem content, at least for the moment, to
make less money with more films, than to search for the next
blockbuster, something that is very rare in the world of independent
films. This is today. Tomorrow could well be different. After all, it
is Hollywood.
Even if you follow everything down to the last detail of what Syd
Field writes, it is no guarantee you will write a successful
screenplay, let alone sell one that anyone will read and then produce.
But it does not hurt to read what the professionals have to say about
getting your screenplay into the marketplace.
Many want to make a film because, if you get lucky, the rewards are so
great. Money may follow. Glory may come. Recognition for your work and
the possibility of work in the future may also result. There is also
that wonderful feeling that comes when you finally complete something
that you worked on long and hard. To that end, Syd Field has
suggestions that might help you achieve your goal.
Do I recommend the two books? Absolutely. If you are starting from
zero, and you have a powerful desire to succeed, and are willing to
spend years learning your craft these books are as good, if not
better, than anything on the market today.
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At NBC News for 35 years, Ron Steinman was bureau chief
in Saigon, Hong Kong and London, was a senior producer on Today and wrote
and produced for Sunday Today. At ABC News Productions, he produced
and wrote documentaries for A&E, TLC, Discovery, Lifetime and the
History Channel. He has a Peabody, a National Headliner award, a
National Press Club award, a International Documentary Festival Gold
Camera Award, two American Women in Radio & Television awards and
has been nominated for five Emmy's. He is a partner in
Douglas/Steinman Productions, whose latest documentary, "Luboml: My
Heart Remembers," aired on PBS' WLIW/21 and the History Channel in
Israel, April 29, 2003. He is the author of, "The Soldiers 'Story",
"Women in Vietnam," and most recently, "Inside Television's First
War: A Saigon Journal," University of Missouri Press, 2002. |
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