Story Sense: Writing Story and Script for Feature Films and Television
1997; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 49; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1934-6018
Autores Tópico(s)Artistic and Creative Research
ResumoLucey, Paul. Sense: and for Feature Films and Television. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, 398 pp., $20.50 (paper). Learning how to write effectively for screen is like learning a foreign language: what works in a novel or short story doesn't automatically translate to a script, where words must create a nonverbal end product. Screenwriting requires both teacher and student to develop visual equivalents for various emotional states and to learn and understand economy of film-how to convey exposition through images and action. In Sense: Feature Scripts for Film and Television, Paul Lucey does an admirable job of covering these and other issues facing aspiring screenwriter. Whether studying in a formal classroom or simply in their spare time, screenwriters could benefit from lessons in these pages. Lucey calls volume a course in a book, and, in fact, he does cover everything-from developing an idea to finding an agent. In cinematic equivalent of John Gardner's adage that writer's aim is to create a vivid and continuous dream in reader's mind, Lucey says more than once that the should flow through mind of a reader like film flowing through a movie projector. He claims that his book teaches two essentials of screenwriting: how to plot a story and how to write plot into a dramatic script (xiii). To that end, 12 chapters in Sense are divided into two parts: Writing Story and Writing Script. An appendix includes a selection of useful information related both to text and to business of screenwriting. The Writers Guild of America Minimum Basic Agreement 1991-1995 and a sample Writer's Deal Memorandum give aspiring screenwriter a look at rates and contracts. Other sections offer excerpted scenes referred to in chapters. Lucey refers to four mainstream films to illustrate discussion in each chapter. These films are The Verdict, The Terminator, Witness, and Sleepless in Seattle. He refers to numerous other films, including such classics as How Green Was My Valley and High Noon and more recent releases such as Speed, Die Hard, and The Fugitive (this last, not surprisingly, since Lucey was a writer on original Fugitive TV series), but continued reference to principal four provides a satisfying continuity and coherence and would make book useful in classroom, where references to multiple films are not necessarily helpful. The four chapters in Part One: Story track screenwriting process from selecting and developing an idea for a motion picture to writing plot. This section concludes with a chapter on scene structure. Part Two: Script opens with chapters that discuss how to translate that idea into idiom of screenplay. The last three chapters of this part cover format. rewriting, and business of writing: agents and meetings; there is even a section titled Making Movies out of Mainstream. Despite nod to alternative filmmaking, this is clearly not what interests Lucey. And in his emphasis on mainstream commercial feature film lie both strengths and weaknesses of his book. While Lucey does refer to some films that use innovative narrative structures (Rashomon, Pulp Fiction, and Day for Night among them), emphasis here is on commercial films and three-act structure. Lucey is very much of school that argues that in order to break rules, a writer must first learn what they are. He also believes that since three-act structure has worked for so long, beginning screenwriter would do well to learn from it. His main concern is that a appeal to industry reader who will buy or recommend that it be bought and ultimately to movie-going public. Lucey avoids dealing with ongoing controversy that such heavy reliance on three-act structure results in a steady stream of predictable, formulaic movies-a topic that leads to controversies even in Hollywood. …
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