If posts to this blog have been sparse of late, it’s because I’m up to my eyes in rewrites.
To be honest, I actually enjoy rewriting. Each pass gives me the opportunity to know my story and characters a little better, to weed out the extraneous and sharpen the clarity.
But sometimes, you’re rewriting for the needs of production. There’s not enough money for this or too little time for that, so you need to make adjustments.
I honestly enjoy most of those too. Screenwriting to me has always been as much about problem solving as story telling.
But sometimes…
Sometimes what they asked for is not what they want when the script finally drops over the transom.
Studios and networks are notorious for having a low startle response. If something appears to be trending, they immediately want to imitate. If the genre seems to be peaking they’ll suddenly want a little less of that direction.
As an example, there are some in Hollywood this weekend suggesting Universal overreached with “Fifty Shades of Grey”. Seems despite earning half a billion dollars worldwide, the rapid drop in attendance after the first week suggests the sequels might be in trouble.
As if any Hollywood film gets into profit anyway, but…
There will likely be calls tomorrow morning from Development Execs suggesting writers who spent the weekend doing research in some dungeon wet room chewing on a ball gag –- might want to shift the next draft toward an upbeat date movie.
And that’s when rewrites become annoying –- and a chore.
It’s one thing to hone what you’ve written. It’s another to make a hard Left because the money’s coming from Brazil or the only tax credit formula that works is in Latvia.
And then everything becomes something unintended…
That’s the theme of Robert Rugan’s multi-award winning “Danny And The Wild Bunch”, which examines how the characters in your script react to being evolved.
And you thought Network Execs could be nasty…
Enjoy Your Sunday…
DANNY AND THE WILD BUNCH - Short Film from robert rugan on Vimeo.
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