Sunday, March 18, 2007

Lights


The League, as you probably know, is a group of "superhero screenwriters" who encourage, aide, abet, teach, and critique each other in their work (and sometimes lives...). However, to say that we're exclusively screenwriters can be misleading. For the purposes of why we've banded together, having the common goal of writing for the screen is as useful for breaking into the industry as it is for bonding us together. However, we also know that some ideas simply cannot be forced into a medium into which they do not fit.


Imagine one of your favorite movies. I'll use "Glory" for mine. It's a great Civil War movie, with great character and great, but also important, battle sequences. If the author of that story was a playwright and a playwright only, "Glory" would have been about the debate to have an all black regiment. It would have been about politicians discussing the battle. And, if audiences were lucky, it might have culminated in the "giant battle" onstage, or, in other words, about twenty actors with rubber guns running around and jumping into the air when a "cannon ball exploded at their feet." It wouldn't have been the same story.


And it works the other way around. Some plays are great, but would make insufferable films, because there are certain elements that define the mediums. Very few artists can successfully ignore those and make a movie that's really a play but still captivates the movie-going audience. And vice versa.


All that said, as writers, we must recognize when we have an idea that transcends our normal medium. In fact, it can be helpful to try one's hand at writing all sorts of things. I know that for me, personally, I have ideas that seem destined to be only screenplays, or plays, or graphic novels, or comic book series, or novels. And though I'm in a league of "screenwriters," if you imagine the eight ideas I have in my head right now as lights in the dark, the one that is burning the brightest is meant to be a play. I acknowledge that. For my own sake, I had better start writing it now, or soon the light will syphon energy from all the others, until it is the only light still burning in my head.

Helpful Site

I was on SuperHeroHype.com earlier, and through an article on the Shazam movie, I stumbled upon screenwriter John August's ("Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," "Big Fish," "Go") blog, which he updates frequently. He started the site as an archive for all of the screenwriter helpful hint articles he wrote for imdb.com, and has since answered many people's questions about writing. I encourage people to check out the site, http://johnaugust.com and read through the archives to find any answers to questions they might have. I especially liked his article about the pleasurable anonymity of being a writer, which can be found at http://johnaugust.com/archives/2006/are-you-somebody.

So check out the site and, if you have on that no one else has asked, ask him a question. He seems to be pretty dedicated to helping aspiring writers out. (I thought it was especially important that, in his ask a question section, he specifically states that he will not respond to people individually, because the site is there as a general help for all, not a means through which one or two people seek to be given a leg up.) Hope you find something interesting there, I did.