On Theater and Film (Part Two)

December 30th, 2009Blog0 comments

(Continued from Part One)

So I was doing pretty well in the theater world. My plays were being produced across the country and abroad, and my pieces were being published in various anthologies. I thought I was developing a fairly good grasp of long-form storytelling. So I started adapting my own work for film.

This is where the difference between the mediums of film and theater began to hit me — my early film adaptations of my work were still very play-like. Too much dialogue, not enough movement from scene to scene. I was screenwriting as a playwright, and none of it was working.

So I went back to basics and studied film like I had studied theater years before. I picked up and read as many screenplays as I possibly could, taking them apart and seeing how they worked. Watching movies and reading screenplays are two completely different things; if you want to get good at any sort of writing, you need to be a voracious reader first. Trying to get good at screenwriting by analyzing finished movies is like trying to learn how to draft architectural blueprints by looking at finished houses. It is best to study how blueprints are drawn instead.

I essentially followed the same path I did when I began playwriting: I studied, I wrote short pieces (some of which were made into short films), I eventually started writing full length scripts. And like I did with playwriting, I submitted my work to as many contests and writing development programs as I could. And like I did with playwriting, I eventually started getting hits.

It all involved a lot of small, incremental moves forward. I think that this is how it will continue to go in the future — you make these moves forward and you learn from each one. You win the smaller contests first, then you build on those laurels and keep on going until you win the big prizes. Continuous improvement.

Eventually the theater work began to support the film work, and vice-versa. This is a people business, and if you have a good track record as a playwright, people can trust that you are capable of disseminating notes and executing rewrites on time on a film project. That is, they know that they can trust you (and pay you!) to work on a movie with discipline and execute an assignment. A prolific writer in one medium is easier to depend on in another; not every writer is a playwright or a novelist or a screenwriter, but every playwright, novelist, or screenwriter is a writer — and focusing on the craft and discipline of writing is what allows you to move between mediums and excel at several of them at once.

So eventually I was being selected for writing development programs and winning awards for both theater and film. Both mediums were beginning to feed my edification of writing in general: Theater taught me how to craft characters and dialogue, how to build real conflict and relationships. Film taught me how to think visually, use brevity (i.e., move things along quickly and don’t waste the audience’s time), and be cinematic in terms of scope and transformations. Nowadays they feed each other — people tell me that my plays feel cinematic, and that my film work has tightly drawn and detailed characters.

It is the best of both worlds now. As we all know, there is very little money in theater — so film provides a means for me to make a good living. But theater provides a continual education in the way people live and work; it gives me access to actors, directors, and organizations that are dedicated to the purity of storytelling. And you know that their dedication is pure because of the fact that there is very little money in it. So in terms of storytelling, it can take more risks and dig for gold in unsafe places.

Thankfully, big things in both mediums are on the horizon. But I’m always interested in and working on the Next Next Thing. “What is the next thing after this next thing?”

It’s television. Or whatever medium TV evolves into in the 21st century world of Apple Tablets. TV is another writers’ medium — essentially, it is playwriting in groups at high speeds with lots of money attached and lots of compromises too. But it’s definitely in a resurgence and is facing a new frontier of possibilities.

But as I think back now — especially at the end of such a terrific, transformative year — I realize that all of it comes down to the indivisible, incredible act of storytelling: How we devise it, how we revise it, and how we perform it. People will always need storytellers, and it is such an amazing honor to be allowed to be one.