Your Script Doesn't Matter

So two good things happened with Dismal today.

One is directly script-related: we distributed the official locked white shooting script. Pretty important milestone for me. Celebrate baby steps, right? I mean, it’s no Oscar nomination, but let’s face it, that’s not a milestone I really need to occupy myself with. The locked shooting script, though? That’s all right. While by no means is the script finished, at least it’s in a good solid place. If we needed to, we could shoot tomorrow. I’d probably get queasy, cry out for my mommy and soil my underthings, but we could shoot.

There are, of course, a few bits I’m still thinking about (there always are, as every writer understands), but they’re the types of things that mean mostly dialogue changes here and there: a possible adjustment of a character’s tone in a few scenes, some professional jargon I’m unsure of, one instance of possibly shifting the placement of a scene. So blue pages – and pink, and yellow, and all the way to goldenrod (HELLO, BEAUTIFUL AND HORRIFYING GOLDENROD!) – are sure to follow, but the heavy lifting is done.

I think.

Who knows? Everything might fall apart, we might lose a couple locations or get that Movie Star the director wants to troll for. And then the heavy lifting will resume. These spaghetti biceps of mine might get more of a workout after all.

The other thing that happened is still script-related, but maybe not so apparently so: tonight we had a very productive, very eye-opening, and in some ways very terrifying post-production meeting.

We collected a pretty amazing team of experts and got them all together, with Ray (director), Jeff (executive producer) and me. Code names: Sound Guy, Editor, Engineer, DP, Visual Effects Guy and Post-house Owner. For a couple hours, we just hashed everything out, trying to solve problems before they have a chance to occur. These guys really know their shit, and they’re willing to pitch in with their knowledge and experience and artistry and skill and make this fucking movie sing.

Fantastic.

And terrifying. As you know, there’s far more that goes into a film than most of us realize. And the more that goes into a film, the more potential for things to go haywire. Hence the terror.

But mostly, it was a great meeting.

Those of us up front on these things (writers, I mean) often forget about these fellas. But we’d be lost without them. Sure, superstar, you can write a genius goddamn screenplay, but if no one is there to shoot and post it, how’s it gonna knock anybody’s socks off?

Since I’ve been a producer for years, I have the benefit of having worked with all of these departments, and more, and that experience is invaluable. Or, I should say, the experience of screwing things up and then having guys like this help me figure out a solution and how not to screw it up next time is invaluable.

And by guys, of course, I mean people. Girls are cool, too.

I think it’s made me a better writer to have, lurking always in the back of my mind, the sense of what good sound design can do to a scene, how important lighting and framing is, what music can carry, how FX can alter the landscape (literally and figuratively) of a visual story, how a line will work if you build the edit up to it properly.

Also, since I’m no big budget Hollywood power player, being a producer has trained me to think wardrobe, art direction, casting, locations, schedule – and maybe most importantly, cast and crew morale and collective team energy.

All this -- I hope -- on my best days -- informs my writing. Or at least is a factor in it, at some subconscious level. And with writing screenplays, all this matters. Because, as I just read in a book by Alan Bennett: There are no good scripts, only good films.

That’s right, friends and neighbors. When your movie’s a big hit, and you’re the darling of Sundance, and Simon & Schuster publishes your screenplay in a snappily-packaged paperback… it doesn’t matter. Not really.

What matters is the movie that the schlub just getting off work in Toledo takes his date to.

He might only have this one date to impress that cute girl from the neighborhood with, just ONE DATE… so think it through, all of it.

Your script doesn’t matter.

Okay. Your script matters. A lot.

But a lot of other stuff matters, too.

Because, in all fairness, the Toldeo schlub’s not taking his date to cuddle up at the film section of Barnes and Noble.