No, James, that's not how it started, actually, but at this point, I'll just say fuck it.

You guys read script however the fuck you want to. Read in to them, make your own assumptions when you're clueless.  Put clothes on nude characters, just completely glance over horrendous writing and mistakes and say how great the writing is and how much you enjoyed reading it.

It doesn't matter...

Fuck it...I give up. You guys have broken me...and balded me.  

http://classic.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+13%3A11-17&version=NIV

Like ST, I read in both fashions: one as the story is written, the other as a deconstructionist "How am I going to get this done (on film)?"

Reading screenplays as literature, or poetry, or haiku is... not useful.


Screenplays are blueprints.
They are not a final product.


Think of it as a pretty woman: good health, big boobies, child bearing hips, face you can look at for a while.
THAT'S the body you want to ruin with childbirth.
Stretchmarks high and low are battle scars. Badges of glory.

A pristine form of a model never to be used for what it was designed for is... not useful.

"Here's a show car - but you can't drive it! Just look at it!"
"Here's a bodybuilder in perfect balance and form - but don't expect to get any labor from it. He's just for show."
"Here's a beutiful picture of food - but don't eat it. It's all doctored up just for a photo."

Well... what's the d@mn point, then?


Just for show - or - just for work?

Quoted from Dreamscale Fuck it...I give up. You guys have broken me...and balded me.

A new study suggests that balding men should just go ahead and Bic it all off: society sees men with shaved heads being more "manly."

Personality Science. A proud bald man himself, Mannes found that his 60 participants, when shown pictures of different hair-blessed and hair-challenged men, repeatedly conceived of the men with cuetops as ranking higher for "masculinity, strength, dominance and leadership potential."

You read that right: dudes with receding hairlines shouldn't fret... just turn to Gillette.

“The shaved look is more attractive than the visibly balding look," Mannes told Time. "So men suffering natural hair loss may enhance both their dominance and attractiveness by shaving."

so if we made your hair fall out we made you more sexy according to this article

A screenplay is just a vision for a film. Someone likes the vision the writer has tried to portray with their script, they can buy the vision and try to bring it to life.

And they have the option of changing the vision as they see fit.

Calling a screenplay a blueprint is fair, but can be deceiving. A blueprint needs to be very exacting. If one measurement is off, the resulting structure can fail.

A screenplay does not need to be as exacting. And in fact to the extent that being too exacting might interfere with the vision, it should not be.

One more thing, then I'm checking out of this conversation: I'm fairly certain that these kinds of debates are what make producers and directors look down with disdain on writers. Just a hunch.

Quoted from Dena A new study suggests that balding men should just go ahead and Bic it all off: society sees men with shaved heads being more "manly."

Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... I'm bald by default

Mark

Got absolutely nothing from this thread apart from Jeffrey being bald? Never imagined that, big guy.

Also, nobody seems to be mentioning the finance. Very unusual for the producer to be fronting it. To be fair, I think you guys are all on a different page with this discussion.

Kevin, you 're compartmentalising far too much, and dare I say suggesting implicitly that you've never been on set. You describe three different roles, but it's not necessarily three different people. You describe an "us" and "them" mentality that doesn't exist in the way you mention it, but rather in textbooks.

Have not compartmentalized anything. I've talked about general concepts. I'm certainly aware that producing, writing, directing are roles that can be performed by the same person, or that people collaborating can share these functions. It doesn't seem necessary to say that, it's self evident.

No doubt many small groups that are producing films simply develop their own concepts and write the script themselves. Or, as at the studio level, writers are hired to develop the script from the concept.

But people here are writing spec scripts. So they are looking for those directors and producers who are searching for a script, or a concept, to choose theirs.

My hypothetical with Jeff was just playing around. It was meant to illustrate that writers, and by that I mean people that more or less focus exclusively on writing, have a very different way of judging scripts than do people that are looking for scripts which they want to film.

I hope this clears things better for you.

I think I understand what Jeff is getting at here, I might be completely off track though, correct me if you need to.

Although for the OWC, because I had to read so many and I'm a slow reader, I stuck to the storyline and left very minimal comments, but normally I would read everything very literally - the way the writer wrote it. Of course my vision compared to theirs would be different, but if a writer has someone naked and never has them get dressed - then they stay naked. If it is a mistake then, I agree, the writer needs to be corrected. If not then fine.

I can see where you are coming from with movies being made today and I agree, but I just can't get it down in words how to say what I mean - feeling tad stupid today - need more sleep

I think all this is a miscommunication over communication.

It started because I misinterpreted a bit of info in Jeff's script, thinking certain phrasings were hyperboles rather than literal descriptions, and it changed my perception of the script and the author's original vision. He faulted me for reading something into it, rather than leaving my preconceptions of life, the universe, and everything at the title page.

Personally, while it's the author's prerogative to require that of their audience, I disagree with it because it's unwise. Movies are meant to be shared experiences. Unless an author writes solely for themselves, then it's silly to favor your own conceptions/experiences over those of your audience. I know "shimmering beads" isn't requiring a lot from the audience and maybe I was the only one to misunderstand it, but this philosophy's just kinda risky, IMO.

Yeah, bflywings and Dan seem to understand the situation better than anyone else has.

As I said on a different thread to Dan, it's always my opinion that a reader should read exactly what has been written and understand that, as opposed to making assumptions or assuming mistakes have been made.

If the writer does a poor job at describing something or completely misses the ball in common sense or logic, then the reader has a choice - read in and make your own assumptions, or simply stop and tell the writer that the script was too poorly written for you to go on.

When you read enough poor scripts, you'll hopefully understand that enough is enough at some point.

When a writer can't write simple sentences without mistakes, I highly doubt they'll be able to conceive the next great plot/story for the latest, greatest movie.  

Quoted from Dreamscale As I said on a different thread to Dan, it's always my opinion that a reader should read exactly what has been written and understand that, as opposed to making assumptions or assuming mistakes have been made.

To me, I think this is pretty audacious. People read your script as a favor to you, so you should be considerate and make it reasonably simple for them.

Quoted Text If the writer does a poor job at describing something or completely misses the ball in common sense or logic, then the reader has a choice - read in and make your own assumptions, or simply stop and tell the writer that the script was too poorly written for you to go on.

I should've stopped and told you that I didn't understand your script before I got to the end? I didn't realize anything was wrong until I finished it and read the reviews. "Shimmering beads" seemed like minor descriptions to break up the dialogue and describe some change in the action, not a major plot device. When I read and don't understand something, I usually fault myself first and keep reading, thinking the confusion might make sense later. In your case, it didn't really make sense until I was done with it. Even when I realized my mistake and went back to re-read it, I not only saw how I missed the significance of the beads, but it didn't really help me to understand what really happened.

Quoted Text When you read enough poor scripts, you'll hopefully understand that enough is enough at some point...When a writer can't write simple sentences without mistakes, I highly doubt they'll be able to conceive the next great plot/story for the latest, greatest movie.

There's no universal standard for communicating clearly, so I'm going to give the author the benefit of the doubt and read their work to the end, regardless. Unless it's impossible to glean even a grain of story from their gibberish, I'm not going to fault them for bad descriptions. I've had plenty of experiences where something didn't make sense early in a reading, but was clarified later on. All of William Shatner's Star Trek books were like that for me. I don't like to make hasty judgments for that reason. I'd miss out on a lot of good stuff if I quit it halfway just because my feeble brain got confused the first time around.

On the other hand, I am a big fan of pattern recognition. If people can't put two and two together, they're not going to prove string theory.

I read what's written.

If I were to read a script where a girl was naked in one slug, then she's outside playing volleyball in the next slug...for one, that would be a great movie, and two, it's not my place to put clothes on her, regardless of the writer's "intention".

Jordan

Quoted from Nomad I read what's written. If I were to read a script where a girl was naked in one slug, then she's outside playing volleyball in the next slug...for one, that would be a great movie, and two, it's not my place to put clothes on her, regardless of the writer's "intention".

If I'm reading a script with the idea that I might want to film it, my thoughts when the girl is playing volleyball in the nude would be "LOVE the story, but I'm not making an x-rated film so we'll just get her dressed here"...wether the writer likes it or not.

Hard truth.  

Quoted from Grandma Bear If I'm reading a script with the idea that I might want to film it, my thoughts when the girl is playing volleyball in the nude would be "LOVE the story, but I'm not making an x-rated film so we'll just get her dressed here"...wether the writer likes it or not. Hard truth.

Bingo.

While wearing the producer/director's hat you just kinda gotta make these kinds of big leaps.
No biggie.