On Friday night, I anxiously rented and watched Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester-By-The-Sea. I’m a big Casey Affleck fan and I was not disappointed with his lead performance in the film. Although Lonergan’s writing is generally first rate, with believable dialogue, I didn’t love the movie. For me, it was a relentless downer and it didn’t get into the meat of the story quick enough. And, from another writer’s perspective, I thought there were several scenes that added no value to the story, as well as slowing the overall pace.
Over Oscar weekend, I heard several parties involved in MBTS saying that writer Lonergan (Gangs of New York and Analyze This), who also directed the film, is so protective of his words that he refused to allow any of his actors to do any improvising with the scenes and dialogue as written. As director, he has command and the luxury to hold the actors to his exact dialogue. And with his record of big movies, he can also get away with that lack of collaboration.
As someone who loves the sight of his own words, I’m sure it’s great to be able to do what Lonergan did. But I wonder what the actors might have brought to the table, if they had been allowed to play with the scenes and dialogue a bit. Directors like Woody Allen have had great success by permitting and even encouraging the players to have the ability to improvise. And if you’re fortunate to have your work made into a film, you need to be prepared to see your writing changed by other folks in the food chain.
Here is a link to some of the greatest improvised dialogue and actions in famous films.
http://screenrant.com/greatest-unscripted-movie-scenes/
Your thoughts?
I would say I'm significantly open to collaboration but that might be because I'm a novice. If I ever had clout or standing I guess that might change. I'm still new and starry eyed enough to feel that if I created something great it wouldn't matter if I was one of two or three names as long as the project reached and touched people. McCartney had Lennon, Joel has Ethan, Beavis has Butthead, why not let two or more minds create greatness?
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I feel like if you want total control of your screenplay you should be a writer/director. Otherwise get producers, directors, actors, to fall in love with your script and let them do their jobs and add value to what you've given them.
I liked the story, but founded the dialogue (or perhaps the directing) annoying. It wasn't so much dialogue as it was dialling monologues with people just talking over each other. I like stories that have struggle and no victory at the end. I find it okay to see people just doing their best in a bad situation.
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Filmmaking is nothing BUT collaboration.
Didn't see it, but he and Affleck both got Oscars, so his approach obviously works.
Judy and Dan:
Good points. My producer colleague is going into a meeting on Monday with the SVP of major studio, for a project we first connected on three years ago. We made the decision to change one of the characters for possible legal considerations. The project is based on a true story and we're trying to anticipate any objections that might arise. But as a writer, I had to make quick changes in cases the guy wants to read the script. There is already interest in the project. In any case, there have already been many changes to the original draft screenplay.
Dan G: thanks so much for your kind thoughts my friend. Beyond doing a polish job on a screenplay, I always caution writers not to go crazy on doing rewrites when nobody's interested in buying your screenplay. The reason this Executive Vice President is interested is because he likes the concept of what we're doing. Yesterday, I spent a few hours refining the logline synopsis and about 4 hours doing a detailed character description of all the main characters in the story. The character descriptions also have character arcs.
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My guy and I just finished our first co-written script. We didn't kill each other and didn't break up. And the script looks to have some magic, we've already got two industry execs we know requesting it. So for this venture at least, it's been a win-win!
I love me some collaboration. It's nice when the co-writer is there in the beginning. If they come late, then hopefully they can explain why they disagree with what's in the script. Nothing worse than a lazy co-writer. - Chris
When I finish a screenplay I always assume it's about half "done". And I look forward to others improving upon it...but I have low self esteem so maybe that's why.