Reader Question: Does Hollywood even care about making compelling stories anymore?
I hear some variation of this question ALL the time.
I hear some variation of this question ALL the time.
From GITS reader Matisse:
I’ve been attempting to write my own “compelling, entertaining story that can at the same time hold up a mirror to expose social ills and cultural ignorance.” But does Hollywood even care about making these anymore?
I think it’s safe to suggest that what Hollywood movie studios care about is making money. It’s also safe to suggest that the studios figure the most reliable way to do that is to produce entertaining movies.
If you can write a story that is entertaining and the studios think they can make money producing it, then in theory, it could be about virtually any subject matter, even one that exposes “social ills and cultural ignorance,” and have a shot at selling,
As fate would have it, I’m currently reading “Essentials of Screenwriting: The Art, Craft, and Business of Film and Television Writing,” the latest book by Richard Walter, longtime UCLA Professor and Chairman of that school’s graduate screenwriting department. Here is a relevant excerpt [P. 13]:
Decades spent writing and teaching have taught me that writers’ own personal stories are the only story they should write.
Even if a writer attempts vigorously to do otherwise, even if he works on an assignment writing a script for hire based on someone else’s idea, even an idea totally alien to his experience, he will nonetheless end up telling nothing other than his own personal tale. Whatever the original concept, however specific, however narrow, in all instances it is filtered through the peculiar sensibilities of the specific writer. In the end, despite himself, the writer will create a tale that is personal.
Why fight it?
My advice: Surrender.
It is one battle in which defeat actually amounts to victory.
Self-revelation lies, after all, at the center of not screenwriting alone but all creative expression. How can self-protection — that is, avoiding what is personal — serve any purpose other than to suppress, stifle, and suffocate the emotion that resides at the center of all worthy art?
So one vote for “personal” screenplays. But it’s important to balance that out with this reality [P. 8]:
Movies are for audiences.
In elitist circles audience is often disdained.
Should a painting find even a single patron if may survive throughout the ages. Should a poem be published by even the most obscure pushcart press, it may eventually be celebrated by masses of readers.
This is not true for film.
Public and popular art is for the public and populace. To fulfill their natural purpose, movies require a collected group, not an observer but a broad multiplicity of observers, all of them viewing the work together in congregations, the lot of them watching the work unfold at a steady, single pace.
— —
No screenwriter, therefore, may ignore audience.
And this [P. 9–10]:
In keeping with Aristotle’s model, the writer is the Source, his screenplay is the Message, and the audience is the Receiver. No writer knows for certain that his script will be produced. This is as true for the humblest beginner as it is for the most experienced practitioner. This is true even for scripts that are sold for substantial sums.
Studio story department shelves are lined with screenplays — optioned, commissioned, purchased — that have yet to be produced. Even among scripts that are produced, many fail to see the light of screen, even after filming. They may, for example, fail to win a distribution deal. In such cases, which represent the vast majority of screenplay sales, the writers’ movies have all the impact they would have had if they had not been written at all.
Screenwriters are compelled to ignore this. They are required to leap a chasm of faith and take as given that what they write is surely to be acted by actors, photographed by cinematographers, edited by editors, and exhibited to audiences. For that, and for other reasons, it’s useful for writers to be just a little crazy.
For that, too, it’s possible to formulate the screenwriter’s first, last, and only commandment: Be worthy of an audience. The good movie is that which merits the time, attention, and consideration of a collected group of people. Write a movie that from beginning to end is not boring and people will queue up around the block; they will stand in line outdoors for hours in rotten weather for the opportunity to trade their dollars for the privilege of spending approximately a hundred minutes with a writer’s projected fantasy.
So Walter suggests two (among several) screenwriting principles:
- Screenwriting’s one unbreakable rule: Don’t be boring.
- Whenever writers sit down before blank paper or glowing pixels,
they should write their own personal story.
If you write for an audience and write a story that is personal to you, as long as what you write is entertaining and Hollywood thinks the subject matter can make them money, you should be good to go.
Assuming, of course, you write a great script.
What about it, GITS readers?
Do you think there is still room to write “compelling” stories that will appeal to Hollywood movie studios?
How important do you think it is to write for an audience?
How important do you think it is to write a personal story?
How important do you think it is to not be boring?