Moving Images, Understanding Media

250 Moving Images: Making Movies, Understanding Media

Devising Plans

In this brief description of his work as a writer, Billy Wilder

brings up why screenplays exist at all. Th e preparatory

stages for fi lmmaking have started with words for the

overwhelming majority of fi ction motion pictures viewed

by audiences across the world. Essentially, this is because

it is more manageable, time saving, and cost eff ective for

a writer to create a plan for the movie than to have a crew

and actors standing around trying to devise solutions for a

story idea created or selected by the directors or producers

of the motion picture. It is also easier for producers to retain

control of the project, and most uses of improvisation as

the basis of the fi lmmaking process have been through

independent ventures or by creators who have distinctively

earned the trust of producers.

In the earlier chapters, we established the most basic

elements of motion picture storytelling, and you have worked

on a variety of original scripts by now. In this chapter you

will be studying the screenwriting process in more depth

to examine additional concepts and practices familiar to

screenwriting. Consider the questions in “Framing the

Discussion” below to pursue this investigation.

Among the motion pictures you have seen for your

work with this book, you have observed some examples of

stories that closely follow familiar storytelling formulas and

others that pursue storylines and ways of revealing narratives

that are quite diff erent from what is considered comfortable

and “normal” to the general public. Th ere are also a wide variety of creative

approaches in the development of narrative blueprints for motion pictures. Some

fi lmmakers have used improvisational techniques with actors in features and

television shows. In Chapter 1, you read about the storyboarding conferences

initiated by the Disney studios in the 1930s. Storyboards have been used as

integral tools in the story development process by such directors as Alfred

Figure 7-1 Writer/director Billy Wilder,

in hat, working with Charles Brackett on

the screenplay to the 1942 fi lm The Major

and the Minor. (Courtesy Paramount Pictures/

Photofest)

• At the outset of a writing project, what is
  important for a screenwriter to consider?


• What are key issues to contemplate in the
  development of a story?


• What are standard formats and strategies of
  motion picture storytelling?
  
  
  • What are some alternatives to standard
    screenplay format in pre-production material for
    a motion picture project?
  
  
  
  

Framing the Discussion

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