It’s easy to forget how simple screenwriting is in the 21st century. Not the process of generating ideas and writing dialogue, which remains as tricky as ever, but the act of actual putting together a screenplay. Having only ever used Final Draft or Celtex, it’s hard to imagine a time when technology didn’t do the job for us. Nowadays, we trust software to format our screenplays correctly, yet the industry standard didn’t even exist for much of cinema’s history.
In the early days of cinema, ‘scenarios’ were written to lay out the sequence of the film. Often, these were single lines reflecting what the camera would point at, a far cry from the 100+ pages of action and dialogue we’re now used to. This was partly due to the simpler productions at the time (no dialogue, each scene consisting of one shot, short running times), and partly because of the ‘cameraman system’, which had the filmmaker acting as writer, director, and cinematographer; when you oversee every stage of production, a less detailed ‘scenario’ won’t cause any issues.
As productions became more complicated, so did screenplays. However, the format wouldn’t be established for decades, with many screenplays from the 40s and 50s being almost unrecognisable from the scripts we see today. Once crews became larger and films became more expensive, the screenplay was more than just a list of shots to be filmed. Instead, it became ‘stage one’ of the production, giving cast and crew an idea of what was needed to create the film. Journalists and magazine writersof the time were quickly hired, having a better visual sense than authors, and thus the role of screenwriter was born.
Is screenwriting still evolving? With new platforms and forms of media, the screenplay as we know it is undergoing changes. Are video game writers and film screenwriters doing the same job? Interactive media, like Black Mirror’s ‘Bandersnatch’, still requires a script, even though the format will look very different from your standard TV script. Meanwhile, writers are starting to embrace multimedia when pitching projects. Sizzle reels and pitch decks are becoming the standard, and it’s up to writers to embrace them.
Are more writers going to embrace sound and visual media when pitching projects? Thunder Road writer/director Jim Cummings recorded his screenplay as an audio drama, believing that allowing producers to hear his story was more effective than sending them a standard treatment. Is this the future for screenwriters? Maybe it’s time for writers to look beyond Final Draft and start thinking about what they can do to stand out from the crowd and take screenwriting to the next level.
–Harry Ford
Harry Ford - Comedian 