The scriptwriting scene has changed since the first edition of this book appeared in 1976. And all nay-saying to the contrary, the change is for the better.
Specifically, the world increasingly is geared to audiovisual presentation. Once virtually a monopoly of the entertainment industry, film today is in major measure the medium of choice for communication in business, in industry, in education, in public relations. The home without a TV set is today a rarity. Add satellite transmission, commercial and cable television, videotape, and the proliferation of VHS and Beta units, and you find viewers in planes in flight, ships at sea, and the most remote villages of India and Brazil.
Technological change also has revolutionized the production end of the business. Faster films, videotape and videodisc recording, more effective and easily transportable lights, and computerized editing equipment have improved quality. And while multi-million dollar budgets still get headlines, the fact is that across the board this improved technology has made it possible to put films on the screen more easily and at lower cost.
That same technology permits inexpensive projection and/or viewing systems to be widely available. Even real estate offices, hospitals, and small country schools have VCR units. And the simplicity of inserting a cassette of videotape versus threading film through a projector means that showing is easier and less liable to the failures which used to plague film showings.
In consequence of all this, the demand for product is approaching the fantastic, to the point that studios producing the traditional theatrical release film no longer hold anything resembling a monopoly on the field. TV movies-of-the-week, series and miniseries, four-walled independent productions, and home and sponsored video have opened the gates of opportunity for an army of talented young people in both the entertainment and informational areas.
The importance of this to the man or woman staking his/her all on creative pencil or pen or typewriter or word processor can hardly be overestimated. For undergirding each project in the onrushing flood lies a script, and someone must of necessity conceive and write it. So while pessimists will tell you how the Writer’s Guild registers multi-thousand scripts a year at a time when the industry produces only hundreds, the fact remains that today each of the 50 states (plus a fair number of counties, cities, dependencies, and even the Navajo Nation) maintains some sort of office designed to lure producers. A check of your classified telephone directory will show you that Louisville, KY, lists seven producers, and Little Rock, AR, boasts nine, while Portland, OR, checks in with 42, Kansas City, MO, with 19, and Atlanta, GA, with 54. In the major centers like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, the companies run into the hundreds. I myself have helped with scripts and productions in Canada, Mexico, Belize, and Costa Rica. So though chances to script War and Peace, Apocalypse Now, or Gone with the Wind may be few and far between, there’s work to be done, assignments to be had, and money to be made.
The result is that while only a handful of writers in the field will ever achieve fame or riches, ever so many do manage to make an adequate-to-excellent living; and a considerable number even attain the independence and satisfaction of producing features.
It also helps that today it’s easier for the would-be scriptwriter to learn how to do his/her job competently than at any time in the past. Courses in both scripting and production are found in well-nigh every state, and chances to break in at the bottom even appear with a fair degree of regularity in metropolitan newspaper employment ads.
Where this book is concerned, I can only say that it’s the one I wish I’d had 40 years ago, when I first tackled scripting. Then, just to find a sample script from which to learn format was a major problem. Mastering technique and structure involved an achingly long process of trial and error.
To shorten—though certainly it can’t eliminate—such apprenticeship, I’ve tried to keep Film Scriptwriting truly a practical manual, with instruction from men and women whose knowledge of the field is both up to date and grounded in experience. The “Lessons from the Pros” chapter includes excerpts from two Academy Award-winning scripts, as well as from the script of the best-selling non-fiction video tape to date. A new chapter, “The Other Side,” offers comments on scripts and scripting from a director of theatrical and network television films, a manager of a major video production facility, a story editor of television series, a producer of home video entertainment films, and a story analyst’s report on a novel proposed for film adaptation.
Where the body of the book is concerned, a good many points have been clarified and sharpened in response to questions raised by readers of the first edition. A fair number of new examples, twists, and techniques have also been introduced. In large degree, however, the contents remain the same. Why? Because the principles of drama remain the same. So, by and large, does format; and awareness that production technology is in a constant and continuing state of flux is more to the point than belaboring details of new developments that will be out of date tomorrow.
A note on language, sexist and otherwise: Most of the time, I simply find it convenient to stick with common usage and say “he” when I mean “a human being,” or “housewife” rather than “housespouse.” I’ve stood solidly for women’s rights where it counted, in terms of equal pay for equal work, for more than half a century, so please don’t label me a male chauvinist pig too quickly. Actions, I feel, are more important than deforming or convoluting verbal gender.
A final item: This new edition carries an additional byline. My wife, herself an outstanding scriptwriter of training, documentary, and travel films, has made such insightful contributions to Film Scriptwriting this time around that I’d be less than fair and evenhanded if I didn’t give her proper credit—even if she’d let me get away with it.
Meanwhile, I’m human enough to take more than a little satisfaction when readers send me copies of scripts they’ve sold, or credit this book with helping them to job success or solving problems.
I hope this new edition helps you on your way as it has them. Good luck!
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As in the first edition, acknowledgements and expressions of appreciation are due to those who have helped with, or granted permission to use their material in, this new version of Film Scriptwriting.
To Wes Craven and New Line Cinema for excerpts from Nightmare on Elm Street; to Nicolas Noxon and The National Geographic Society for excerpts from Secrets of the Titanic; to Oliver Stone and Ixtlan, Inc., for excerpts from Platoon; to Benjamin S. Walker and the U.S. Postal Service for excerpts from Internal Crime Prevention; to Colin Welland, David Puttnam, and Enigma Productions, Ltd., for excerpts from Chariots of Fire; to Charles A. Palmer and Parthenon Pictures for excerpts from The Gullies; to Jack Turley for excerpts from Terror on the Fortieth Floor; and to Beth Sullivan, Oliver Crawford, and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation for story coverage of The Wednesday Night Killers.
For interviews, to Judy Burns, Burt Kennedy, Christopher Lewis, Barry Perelman, Richard Thorp, and Dale Launer.
For advice and assistance in ways beyond naming, the Writers’ Guild of America, west, Inc.; Mary Nell Clark and the Oklahoma Film Board; Charles Nedwin Hockman, professor of journalism and director of motion picture production, University of Oklahoma; Robert L. and Wanda Duncan and Maureen McGivern, scriptwriters; Gerald Dorey, former commissioning editor, Focal Press; and Gillian Hartnoll, Head of Library Services, British Film Institute.
For help in obtaining permissions, Robert F. Marshall and Jill L. Smith of Greenberg, Glusker, Fields, Clamen, and Machtinger; Carol F. Tilton, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation Legal Department; Neil Freedman, Legal Department, New Line Cinema; Michael Lynne, Blumenthal and Lynne; and Joseph M. Blanton, Jr., Permissions Department, National Geographic Society.
Very special thanks go to Arlyn Powell, Karen Speerstra, and Philip Sutherland of Focal Press for their encouragement and support.
And to all my students and participants in the workshops and seminars I’ve conducted throughout the years for their questions and comments which led to my thinking through problems and how to explain and present them to beginning writers.
Dwight Swain passed away in early 1992, as Film Scriptwriting: A Practical Manual, Second Edition neared its fourth printing. The Publisher joins his family in mourning the loss of a gifted writer, teacher, and friend. His creative talents, insights into the writing process, and ability to inspire writers everywhere will be sorely missed.