| [BACK]
My POV
Brian A. Wilson
WANT TO IMPROVE YOUR WRITING? MAKE A MOVIE!
If you're more than a dabbler in the screenwriting profession, you've read books by the dozen. You've been to so many classes, your fingers are calloused from taking notes. And as for studying your craft? Your shelves bulge with produced scripts you've read, re-read and dissected like a high school biology experiment.
While these are great--and necessary--ways to learn, there's a better way: Make a movie.
In case you haven't noticed, you're living in the midst of a media revolution. Your one-time "word processor" has turned into a movie studio. There's no reason you can't shoot what you write.
Why do it?
Making one short movie, something in the thirty second to three minute range, will ram home every lesson from every book, class and script you've experienced like a hot poker between the eyes. Make two or three shorts, and you'll start to see yourself and your work, and the work of others, in a fascinating new light. You'll realize what has to be on the page, and what doesn't. I guarantee you'll write better dialogue and have far less of it in any scripts you write after shooting a short.
Another great reason: it's fun! We writers tend to cram ourselves into little rooms, staring at the display for hours on end. Come on, admit it--there are days when it's three in the afternoon, you're still in your underwear and haven't had a shower. Sometimes, if the muse is feeding you, this is necessary. Other times, well it's the dark, anti-social side of writerdom.
Making a short will alleviate some of this isolation. As you know, you can't make a movie by yourself, and if you don't believe me, try it! Better yet, just do it right, get some friends together and shoot.
One of the most gratifying aspects is seeing your work come to life. It shortens up the cycle of writing a 100-page script for six months, chasing producers or agents down the street for another six months to two years, then enduring a three-year production cycle if you're lucky enough to sell something and get it made. Instead, you're looking at writing a two or three page script, a couple days of prep, a day of shooting, a week or so of editing, and voila! You have a finished manifestation of your work!
With luck, my sales job has worked. You're convinced you want to shoot a short. Next week, I'll give you my take on how to make it happen. Hint: It starts with a script!
Keep writing...and think about shooting!
BW |
