• Wondering which camera, gear, computer, or software to buy? Ask in our Gear Guide.

Sacrificing my own preferences for the sake of the audience

There are not many films in which a minor gets shot. It happens in real life where there are wars going on because we see it in the news. So let me first give an example: Say an unproduced film writer with a spec script were writing a film based on a true story, but one which heavily ficionises and exaggerates things to console himself - depicting that a crown court judge was assainated when in fact he wasn't, for instance - is writing about a gang of youths who are being assisted by minors to ransack a housing estate, frighten the old folk, and smash windows, while enjoying immunity to prosecution because of their age, and one man who is not mentally ill but who decides to take on the gang by shooting the leader with a handgun. Excepting that on the occasion when he comes into contact with the gang catching them in the act of frightening old folk and causing massive damage, he decides albeit by premeditation to shoot the leading minor as well. Now this kind of script would provoke controversy, and could anger people in the audience. Sure they will have read about it before they go and see it, so they will know what to expect. So the writer of it, being a consciencous guy, not wanting to lose sales for the production company, edited the minor scenes out early on, just showing them in the beginning, so that the only one that would be shot is the youth. The problem is, whenever he (and anyone else) reads the script it appears to have something wrong with it, like the writer has overlooked something inadvertently not intentionally, namely he depicted minors being in it at the beginning and then we hear nothing else about them. It might be obvious to responsible people that the writer has edited it this way with deliberate intent, but the tactic could also go against him. The audience might see the tactic and misinterpret it, and then give the film bad reviews because it contains an error. Similarly the writer has decided that he cannot omit minors completely because it will cause the audience to question why there are no minors in the housing estate gang sequences. So there has to be minors and there has to be a leading minor, just as there has to be youths and a leading youth. The writer believes that even the most deplorable thug or the mentally ill that watch the film will not carry out a copy cat offence in real life because of it. So it doesn't concern that question. What it concerns is if the shooting of a minor will make the audience forget about the rest of the film. Will they come away thinking, `that was a great film about the shooting of a minor' when in reality it is being edited to be a great film about two people caught up in controversial matters. I have one option, reviewed here a few months ago, (as I am the writer), which would have the shooting sequence cut completely and inserted into a dream sequence. There would be a less controversial shooting sequence inserted back in its place, one that would be more acceptable to the audience because they would be reasonably familiar with that kind of thing. The combination of the shooting in the dream sequence and the less controversial shooting might inform rational people about what actually happened as the writer remembers it and has chosen to write it, while at the same time playing it down for the sake of the mainstream audience. I would be sacrificing my own preferences for the sake of the audience. Tell me what you think. Would I be gambling my career as a script writer with the odds on losing if I depict it as it is? I do not want to advertise myself as being someone who was lenient with them. With these particular (word omitted). Think of me as a soldier who at one time could not tell right from wrong because of the hostility of war after being forcibly drafted who has written an account of it. I want to depict it as I remember it to console myself, but at the same time I want to impress the audience with my writing.
 
You don't know what the audience wants. Neither do I. Nobody does.

If anyone here had the secret to making a good movie, that person would be richer than God and wouldn't have time for the forum because Scorcese and Lucas and Speilberg would be banging at his door. (Memories of "The Muse.")

The only thing we can rely on is honesty. Gut honesty, since we're writing fiction. What is the truth of the character? What is the truth of the story? What is the truth of the situation?

If you set out to impress people with your writing, you probably won't succeed. If you have a great story and you set out to tell it as well as you possibly can, then you have a chance.

In our little filmmaking company, we have a motto, and that is that the first five pages and every pivot scene has to say, "Sit down, shut up, and listen to my fucking story." Taking that motto on as a writer has helped me immeasurably as a writer because the only way to accomplish that is to dig way down, find the truth, and figure out a way to make it jump out of the page.

If you're writing this story for self-consolation, then I'd say you have to write it straight for it to have the desired effect. If someone doesn't like it, then it wasn't for them. There could easily be two million other people in the world that it IS for.

Whew.

Now I'm pumped up!

-Eric
 
Nobody else knows

You're the only one that completely understands what you are trying to do. Don't let people that know what you are trying to do influence you for the worse. I've always had people questioning my motives in my films, they don't "get it" right away, and some people will never get it. You can't please everybody, so you might as well please yourself.
 
Realism and Story Telling

It is my belief that portraying real events and story telling are two different things and in a sense the decision you have to make is about which you want to do.

What you know at the moment is that the script doesn't work. Getting the script to work has to be your number one priority, because the only thing you will be judged on when the script is read, is whether the story is interesting enough to hold the reader's attention. The actual content is, for the moment, irrelevant. The reason it is irrelevant, is because whoever ends up producing/directing your script will know what points they want to keep in the script and what points they have to dump, in order to make it work commercially. These decisions will be made for you int eh script editing process.

Anything that a human being might do is fair game for a screenplay. Unless your intention is to pitch your screenplay to a company that make a particular kind of film (ie. for children's television) then it's counter productive to self-censor.

On the other hand, it's thinking like this that has in the past, made my own scripts almost unfundable by most of the major UK funding bodies.
 
Back
Top