Letters to the Editor
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Screenwriting
To establish my bonafides, I,m a screenwriter; if I gave myself proper credit, you could confirm that in the IMDb. I've done it for 25 years, so I have that rare thing in Hollywood - "perspective."
My "film school" was several years of lunches with Billy Wilder, due to his friendship with my writing mentor (who wrote Wilder's least-favorite "Billy Wilder movie" - the film nerds can figure out which that is), due to the fact I was the only person who hadn't heard his stories ten times. I believe I know him well enough to know he'd call Norman's book "pretentious crap." Of course, he'd have used a more forceful version.
That Norman worships the Bourgeois Bolsheviks makes it unsurprising he's a leader in the latest charge-against-the-windmills. As David Freeman once said in his collection of short stories "A Hollywood Education" (still worth picking up and reading the stories in order, you'll get an education, given that nothing ever really changes here other than the cars and the clothing styles): "Hollywood is the last respectable outlaw profession for upper class white boys."
Allow me to paint a different picture of what's going on.
The truth is, most screenwriters aren't any good. Screenplays aren't The Great American Novel. Paul Shrader's right - it's a blueprint. The ability to use words effectively is important, but equally important is the ability to "see a shot." A knolwedge of photography helps. Over the years I've wsupervised younger writers, and every one who took my advice to go buy a camera and learn to see a shot went on to professional success. Guys like Norman will never get that, since they're busy being Great Writers instead of competent draftsmen. Dalton TYrumbo used a similar system, the best result of which is that Kirk Douglas' favorite "Kirk Douglas movie" - Lonely Are The Brave - was shot using Trumbo's first draft. (For aspiring screenwriters, the other secret is to speak your dialogue aloud it and be sure it can be said - the actors will appreciate you for this.)
Furthermore...
Twenty years ago, writers in Hollywood actually got paid. For everything. No free options of work created; when one pitched a story and interest was germinated, one was paid to write it. The system allowed a writer who not from the upper classes could write and survive, and what got made was a wider range than the angst of the young upper classes we get today.
And then we struck, and settled after 23 weeks for what we could have had after 23 hours. The result was the destruction of that world. Within months, the "Screenwriter's Lottery" was on, with everyone writing "high concept" scripts on spec in search of a million dollars. (One has a greater chance of being struck by lightning) The only people who could afford to break in were from the trust-fund classes who'd graduated from film schools where the teachers are failures - who would do that job for that little money if they actually had any talent and had a chance of making it for real in the movies?) Of course, being good little students, the new crop all parrot what they have learned from the failures, and you can see the result on the screen.
And now to the Real Truth of Screenwriters in Hollywood today:
20 years ago, the WGA stated that the average WGA member made $50,000 a year - a sum created by taking all money paid to screenwriters and dividing by the number of union members. Today they say the average member makes $60,000 a year.
For starters, that means writers haven't kept up with inflation over the past 20 years, assuming that figure actually meant something, which it doesn't.
20 years ago, 80% of members qualified for health insurance at any time, meaning they had made at least the equivalent of a "guild scale" 30-minute script in the preceding 12 months ($13,500). Today, 80% do not qualify for health insurance, meaning they didn't make $24,500 in the previous 12 months - hardly a princely sum. Yes, a few writers are being paid a helluva lot (and they're the ones pushing the strike) but the average writer either has a crappy day job or thanks their tribal deity for the accident of birth that provides the trust fund.
20 years ago we couldn't win against stand-alone studios . Today we're supposed to go against minor arms of intergalactic corporations. What part of this picture doesn't make sense???
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So you're in a union, aren't you?
And the self professed writers here are engaged in a nonstop chocolate cake and hankies bitchfest about how much it sucks to do this and how poorly you are treated? And you still do it?
Sucks to be you I guess. Pick out a nice wall and bang your head against it.
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Film Credits
It makes no sense to omit screen writers in the credits while listing such people as gaffers, best boys, riggers, and other such tote and fetchit persons. The public wants to know who is responsible for content.
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"The Scab"
INT. LIVING ROOM - DAY
LIZZIE, 50ish and pretty, lounges on the couch with her Mac laptop perched on her knees. She is buried in pillows and cozy throws. Her kitty, BABY DAUGHTER, kneads Lizzie's "Magic Scarf" next to her.
Lizzie glances out the window at the wet, colorful autumn leaves and sighs.
LIZZIE
These people kill me. All their whining and complaining
about some stupid writer's strike. Great! No writers writing,
no lords a leaping...
(singing loudly)
No golden rings!!!!
The dog, DOOFUS, lays nearby snoring loudly. Lizzie glances over toward the dog.
LIZZIE
God I wish I could sleep like that. I wonder if
taking just one of her estrogen capsules would hurt?
The parrot, HOOTER, bobs his head up and down. Baby Daughter stretches out.
HOOTER
(mocking Lizzie)
No golden rings!!!!
Lizzie laughs, throws the covers away, sits the Mac down, grabs her old-fashioned coffee mug with the Route 66 logo on it and heads for the kitchen.
INT. KITCHEN - DAY
Nice kitchen. A little on the Bohemian side. One bumpersticker on a cupboard says, "Support a New Investigation! www.911pressfortruth.com", another says "Out of Iraq Now!commondreams.org" and another says "Colbert 2008!"
She glances at the stickers, fills her coffee cup and walks to the sliding door that leads out to THE DECK. Birds and little chip munks eat at the various feeders.
INT. LIVING ROOM - DAY
She saunters back toward the couch with her coffee as she kisses Hooter's head.
LIZZIE
(singing)
Four calling birds, three French hens, two
turtle doves. And a partridge in a pear tree!
She takes a sip of coffee, buries her face into Baby Daughter's belly and cries.
LIZZIE
Oh, Baby Daughter....I wish the Magic Scarf was
really magic....