Seeing it on the screen

People rarely ask me questions about being a newspaper columnist. Occasionally I’m asked where I come up with my ideas, or what reactions have been to a certain column, but generally people just seem to accept that I’m a know-it-all with an opinion and/or a knucklehead trying to be funny.

Personally, I don’t believe being a screenwriter involves any more creativity than being a weekly newspaper columnist, but it appears many people think otherwise. After a private screening last week of a feature film I largely wrote, many audience members appeared to be fascinated with how the writing was done. They wanted to talk about the process, how I came up with ideas and the characters and weaved it all together.

My response was that I get a germ of an idea for a script, start thinking about it constantly, formulate at least an outline of a plot, come up with some intriguing, non-stereotypical characters, then start writing.

Usually I write cathartically. Generally I’ve been thinking about what comes next from the last time I left the keyboard, so when things are going well, the writing pours out. Ideas flow onto the page. (No such luck, or not much such luck, with a screenplay I’m writing now after being hired by a New York-based producer. It’s been a tough go overall.)

My philosophy of writing, with columns, screenwriting and whatever else I write, is to write fast and rewrite and edit slowly. I write dialogue in scripts particularly fast, because I want my characters to talk like real people, not in the stagey, overly glib way characters speak in the works of other writers. (Hello, Aaron Sorkin.)

My first drafts of scripts and columns are often pretty rapidly done, but the rewrites take forever. Still, I know I can make it through a screenplay, as I’ve written about 10 feature film scripts and five short film screenplays, many of which are with producers around the country, with hopes of those screenplays being made into films.

I learned to never count on a film being made, though, until the actual onsite filming begins, because so much has to come together for it to even reach that point. A producer needs to want to make a script into a film. If the producer is not a director, the producer needs to find a director. If the producer doesn’t have the money to make the movie, and producers often don’t, financing has to be found, and if it is found that money is often matched with state tax credits. Then shooting dates, a location, cast and crew have to be lined up, none of which is easy. Then, maybe, a movie is made. People also asked me after the screening how it feels to see your creation, which you’d envisioned in your mind way back when, up on the screen. All I can say, as a lifelong movie nut, it it’s surreal, particularly the first time, to see that it’s all come that far. And when the film is good as the one shown at the private screening last week, is, it’s as big a thrill as I’ve ever had in my life. It’s way beyond cool, miles past great.

One thing I’ve learned is making movies is a collaborative process, particularly when it comes to the screenplay. Everyone has a shot at the script: the producer, the director, the cinematographer, the actors, various other people involved. Sometimes things are altered or eliminated from the screenplay for budgetary reasons. After you’ve been in the screenwriting business for a while, you learn to roll with the changes.

But when it all comes together beautifully, as it has with this latest one, there’s no feeling like it. It is pure joy.