Saturday, September 28, 2013

I Am Now A Certified Screenwriter


Pass the bubbly! Break out your best party knickers! And drumroll please, for I have an announcement to make: 

Today I handed in the last assignment of my scriptwriting studies.

Finally it is done. I'm happy while also nervous, since I don't have my final grade yet. I'm tired from all the long nights these past few weeks (of course I left the biggest two assignments for last and a little too late, 'cause that's how I flow. Deadlines are my best friends. Yeah right. *rolls eyes*). Yet at the same time I'm energized and inspired because I am now a certified screenwriter (at least in Germany).

Okay, back up a step, say that again. Savor it. Fully comprehend it.

I am now a certified screenwriter.

Wow! Is that cool or what?!

I have no clue if this will help me get my movies made, but I sure do have a lot of ideas and I damn sure will try to get them to the studios. But for now I shall power down my laptop, pour myself a glass of wine, maybe read a book from my ever-growing TBR-pile, go out with some friends or hang with my flat mates.

Time to celebrate. 

Friday, September 27, 2013

The Fascination Of Reading The Script While Watching The Motion Picture (OR Nerd Alert! Nerd Alert!)


This might be an incredibly nerdy thing to do, but if I can get my hands on the script of the movie or TV-series episode I'm watching, I will read and watch it at the same time.

Is there anybody else out there who does this? I'm sure there are other movie-/TV- and or sreenwriter-freaks out there who do, but so far I've met none. When I tell people that I do this, their faces turn into question marks. Why would you need to read the script? they want to know. You're watching the movie, you know what they're saying.

Except it's not quite that simple. A script is mostly dialogue. It's he-said she-said and some description, because in a motion picture especially, it's all about showing, not telling. In a film, you can only convey a character's feelings by showing them: a nervous tick, teary eyes, a big smile. No "feeling-sads" or "heart-sinking-to-knees" or "big-balls-of-rages-in-guts". A good scriptwriter can convey such feelings by showing them and the better the scriptwriter, the less is open for interpretation. Yet there always remains a lot of space for individuality and imagination: the director's, the actor's, even the camera-man's. This isn't a bad thing: a good actor can play the scene very differently from what the scriptwriter had in mind and still blow the audience away with the performance.

But that's the point: if a hundred people read the script, the descriptions and dialogue in black-on-white, you will get a hundred different opinions on how the movie must look, and none of them would be wrong. Except there is (usually) only one movie made based on the script; only one version of many different peoples' interpretations of the script, and it's never quite what the scriptwriter imagined - unless maybe he directs it himself.

Basically, I find it fascinating to compare the two, to know that the script came first and to see how it was translated onto the screen. For me, the fascination lies in the translation. 



So, for those of you who might now be intrigued and want to try this out - seriously, it's fun and fascinating and gives you more moments of "Huh, interesting" than you might believe - here are the sites I head to to find the script to what I'm watching. I'm afraid not every script to every movie or episode ever made is out there for grabs, but definitely a decent amount.

For movies I usually go to The Internet Movie Script Database or Simply Scripts, which has both movies and TV-series episodes. For the latter, I also head to TV-Writing.

Any other good websites for movie-and-TV-scripts out there?

And please, somebody, tell me you do this, too. I know you want to... I know you're out there...


Sunday, September 15, 2013

August Writing Tally

This is going to be a small one. Apart from three blog posts (exactly 1.500 words altogether, but have I been counting blog posts in the tallies?), basically the only thing I worked on in August was one assignment for the screenwriting studies. It totaled at 1.132 words when I sent it in. It was up to approximately 6.000 at one point, but I had to pare it down to two pages, so I took a machete to the 6k. Which took me three weeks. 

Two more assignments to go and then I'll be a certified screenwriter. If I manage them by September 30th, but hey, the next one's almost done... going back to it now. Wish me luck and write on everybody!


Previous tallies: 

January: 19.675 words
February: 15.781 words
March: 19.215 words

April: 27.336 words

May: 49.403 words
June: 20.329 words
July: 33.900 words