Screenwriters: Watch, Listen, Learn
A million years ago I dated an actor. A working actor. I.e., the sort who paid rent by pretending to be someone else. Lots of someone elses. Some of whom I’m sure you’ve met along your cinematic journey. Anyway, this actor used to drag me to the movie theater seven days a week, determined to see every title out there. After I was forced to sit through a particularly gruesome piece of work which neither one of us enjoyed in any way, I finally asked my paramour why we were doing this, night after night, again and again. Don’t get me wrong. I was always a movie fan. But some of the stuff he made me go see… Anyway, my actor paramour turns to me and says: What do you mean? It’s my job to know what’s out there. We broke up a short time after. There was only so much bad movie fare a girl can tolerate.
I didn’t know this then, but it turns out my paramour was right: Because you are working in – or trying to break into – a living, breathing, ecosystem of collaborative, creative work, it’s of the utmost importance that you know the material that is out there, and are able to speak about it authoritatively and knowingly. Often times I come across writers who tell me they haven’t seen a movie in over a year because “they are all bad”. Don’t get me wrong: I am not asking you to love it all; I am asking you to make yourself familiar with the work that is being made out there. Writers are allowed to have their own subjective opinion. They are not, however, allowed to be ignorant.
In order to stay informed and on top of the trends, here are a few recommendations to help you wrap your brain around the work:
- Watch similar works. Whether writing for film or TV, make sure that you are closely familiar with other works in the same vein as your screenplay or pilot script. That means watching movies in like genres, or TV shows that cater to the same audience. If ever you are in a meeting or professional scenario, you want to be able to talk about the current landscape with knowledge and confidence, and because such knowledge requires clocking many screen hours, you’re not going to gather it in a day.
- Read current script. Managers, agents, and producers get their hands on as many buzzed-about unproduced screenplays as they can, if only to know what is gaining traction out there. While you may not have the same access to material, or friends sending over scripts that came across their desks, be sure to check online sources for unproduced scripts on a regular basis. It will do well by you to know what is out there.
- Get educated. In the days of Netflix and Hulu, not going to film school is no excuse for not knowing the great movie and TV shows that came before your days. For starters, go through AFI’s Top 100 Movies list, then watch and contemplate every last one of them. You need to know not only about Spielberg and Scorsese, but also about Fellini and Truffaut, Welles and Godard. If you are a TV fan, check out the WGA’s Best 101 Written TV Series, and go down the list, one by one. Once you get past the top 10, you want to focus on material that is in the same broad genre as your material, to help inform and support any and all choices that you’ve made so far.
Remember, professionals want to work with other professionals. In today’s market, a great screenplay is just the start. Understanding the material currently on people’s minds, as well as that which came before it and paved the path to where we currently, cinematically are, will do plenty to help you establish yourself as a serious professional.
