Screenwriting 101: Chris Weitz

“That’s the problem I find in most of the scripts that I read. If it’s a comedy, people will sacrifice the consistency of tone for something funny because obviously it’s a comedy, it’s supposed to be funny — but that can lead to a weird jarring of the audience where they suddenly realize they’re watching a film that’s trying to make them laugh, rather than being seduced into a particular frame of mind in which things happen to be funny. That’s the worst thing about most comedy writing that goes wrong: nobody has respect for the tone of the piece they’re trying to do.”

 — Chris Weitz (Antz, About a Boy, The Golden Compass) from “Screenwriters’ Masterclass: Screenwriters Talk About Their Greatest Movies,” edited by Kevin Conroy Scott