Writing For The Screen Essay, Research Paper

Writing for the Screen

I was sitting down one day watching a movie in the theater and I had noticed how insignificant and how bland it was. There really didn’t seem to be much essence, not much feeling of intense emotions in it that really needed to be applied to the subject matter. I felt very inspired to act upon this and correct it. To make what is meant to be said in the film and tell the truth of the heart of the matter.

This movie was one of those blockbuster genre movies that seemed as if it was ‘cooked up’ and formulated out of a factory just as the last dozen were in the past. It reminded me of those ‘cookie cutter’ popular formulated teenage love/horror/pseudo movies that have sequel-after- sequel. You can t get rid of them and they just keep coming back even more. For instance the summer regurgitated movie, I Know What You Did Last Summer, is a good example of a formulated ‘re-hash’ of writing just redone.

Sometimes I feel the writers of these films just do it for the money, or the simple fame of achieving a blockbuster movie once again. We find this with the writer of The Faculty, which wrote I Know What You Did Last Summer and its sequels. These are so formulated that it is easy for those that analyze and look at movies as a work of art and not just merely a Saturday night date place. These scriptwriters seem to stray away from their original concept of creative writing and have conformed to the Hollywood pressures of fitting a script standard that has been set.

Look at an independent thinkers like Quentin Tarantino. He is a revolutionary writer that has radically changed the style of writing. He introduced in America a Hong Kong style of pure blood, extreme action, non-stop continuos scenes of violence and profanity that threads his great movies together from script to screen.

Viewing these movies and analyzing them made me reflect and realize that scripts should really tell what is needed and not what is expected to be by the general Holly wood producers and general population of viewers. It also made me realize to take a look at the actual art of writing as a craft and not only a moneymaker. To be able to avoid the formulated movies that continue to come out and to strive for excellence as Tarantino has and Oliver Stone has. This realization made me feel that I could accomplish this and at times may have to edit a script but not to conform wholly to the general Hollywood eyes as most have. This meant a lot to me to realize it and to see the truth in writing for the screen and that it is truly a craft of art.