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The Screenplays you read, that helped you become a better screenwriter.

Screenwriter

Screenwriter



What are the screenplays that you've read that have helped you become a better screenwriter?

In my opinion, reading a different screenplay a week, is probably better then reading any book on screenwriting, taking any class, or listening to any advice someone gives you... Reading a really good script, imparts knowledge to your brain, that nothing else can even compare to.


Here's my list...

Raging Bull
Last of the Mohicans
Dog Day Afternoon
There Will Be Blood
 
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I was a reader for many years sometimes reading 20 scripts a week.
For me, reading unproduced scripts was more helpful than reading
scripts of films I had seen. I have been a judge on five
competitions and that really helped me as a writer, too.

While I do enjoy reading produced scripts from professional
writers I get more out of reading scripts from my peers.
 
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directorik said:
I was a reader for many years sometimes reading 20 scripts a week.
For me, reading unproduced scripts was more helpful than reading
scripts of films I had seen. I have been a judge on five
competitions and that really helped me as a writer, too.

While I do enjoy reading produced scripts from professional
writers I get more out of reading scripts from my peers.
Click to expand...


That's a good point, at my screenwriting meetings I go too, 99% of the time the screenplays are horrible, but that's a good thing because it helps you learn "what not to do".
 
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I've benefited from a multi-aspect approach.

When reading screenplays of produced films make sure you're reading a actual pre-production screenplay rather than an almost useless transcript.
A fairly decent resource: http://www.imsdb.com/latest/

Next, watch all the DVD/BR director/actor/producer/writer/editor commentaries you possibly can.
Listen for and note the frequency of elements they divulge as being changed from the screenplay to what was actually shown in theaters.
Comments like "We really stuck to the script" do not reconcile with "we ad libbed a lot".
Listen for what the editor changed. The producer or studio changed. The MPAA changed.
When you watch the deleted scenes consider A someone wrote that, B several people approved that, C Many people shot that, D someone paid likely tens-of-thousands of dollars a minute to produce that, E the editor still put it together, F then it was cut from the release due to any number of reasons, the most often cited are continuity and pacing.

Some of the best DVD/BR director/actor/producer/writer/editor commentaries I've seen (in no particular order)
- Fight Club (probably the best, actually)
- Salt (Read the wikipedia on this release and consider the screenwriter's job from front to back)
- Cabin Fever (Roth really gives it up for this one)
- Open Water
- Green Zone (Divide the production budget by the screen minutes to render a release cost/minute. Watch the deleted scenes and calculate how much was spent for scenes never included. Then listen to Damon remark to Greengrass "I think this is the first time I ever read any of the screenplay of any of our films" for a single scene).

Understand that whatever you write as an original screenplay is going to be changed.

Begin with an original screenplay.
That'll go through several rewrites in pre-production before a studio/producer "locked" script is stamped approved.
Then once on set, the approved "locked" script will get butchered by everyone.

- Director's going to change it out of personal interpretation.
- Producer or studio is going to change it because of budgeting.
- The settings located are going to change it.
- The actors are going to think of eight different ways to deliver each and every GD line of both dialog and action.
- The editor is going to take the best take of two to fifty-two takes, then monkey with the audio to suit.
- This process renders a "fat cut", often plumping out over four hours from a hundred to three hundred hours of recorded material. Your 90 to 110 page original screenplay is in there somewhere - in some form or fashion.
- The fat cut gets edited down to 90 to 120 minutes. Maybe most of what you wrote is in there. I bet 20% of it is stuff you never wrote.
- Then it gets re-edited for gilding-the-lily timing, pace, and continuity.
- Then the producer/studio makes more editing suggestions.
- Then the MPAA has a few remarks to make to suit the distributor's demands.

Bones.
Fabricate nice "bones" to a story, because that's all that's going to remain on screen.

The third step is to join a screenwriting forum, read a lot of what others say about each other's works, write a ten page or so short yourself, take your peer beatings, repeat about couple-dozen times.

Then... start making your own writer/director films. ;)

GL & GB!


Ray

EDIT: https://docs.google.com/document/d/...it?authkey=CJXH2tEH&hl=en_US&authkey=CJXH2tEH
 
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+ There will be Blood, also liked reading Something about Mary, and American pie, some says its cheesy but it came out when I was in highschool so its still entertaining to me
 
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directorik said:
I was a reader for many years sometimes reading 20 scripts a week.
For me, reading unproduced scripts was more helpful than reading
scripts of films I had seen. I have been a judge on five
competitions and that really helped me as a writer, too.

While I do enjoy reading produced scripts from professional
writers I get more out of reading scripts from my peers.
Click to expand...

Hell yeah to this.

Reading unproduced scripts going to big talent and agencies was an eye opener for sure. On at least two occasions I've gotten a script from a producer interested in dropping money and they were good enough for me to read on my iPhone or iPad in one clean sit.

I don't know of an actual produced script that really struck me, because it's already produced, but unproduced or going into being produced seriously helped me out.
 
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A source for decent unproduced scripts is the Blacklist.
As far as scripts, "The Limey" influenced me a lot. Love the opening:

Wilson's first impression of Los Angeles was blue. He was in
the sky at the time, so it was a curious reversal, looking
down rather than up at the color he had always felt was
nature's finest.

Swimming pools. Hundreds of them. Pockmarking the landscape
like miniature lakes. A flat landscape of straight streets
and square blocks and sparse grass that didn't look quite
green enough.

As far as Wilson could remember, he had only ever seen seven
or eight swimming pools in his entire life and they had been
public ones. Here everyone had their own. Marvellous.

There was the one at the Butlin's holiday camp where he had
enjoyed his last legitimate employment -- as driver of a tour
bus. And there was the one at Crystal Palace he had gone to
once or twice when he was younger. He was most familiar,
though, with the Chelsea Baths as he had lived for some time
in a flat nearby in what he now thought of as his good years
-- before he'd gone grey, went to prison, and found himself in
a plane over a foreign town arriving to avenge the death of
his daughter.
 
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Brian -

If a nube submits a novely spec screenplay full of unfilmables such as those the PA readers won't get past page 1.

Only "pros" with street cred to burn can get away with line after line of:
- "Wilson's first impression of Los Angeles was blue."
- "the color he had always felt was nature's finest."
- "As far as Wilson could remember"
- etc.
- etc.
- etc.

Can't put thoughts, feelings, and remembrances on film.
Rookie nube ought not be including such in their spec screenplays.

Now, if all that's in a monologing V.O., well... then it's beautiful and fair game.

But don't do that in action lines.
Not for a spec screenplay.
 
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rayw said:
Brian -

If a nube submits a novely spec screenplay full of unfilmables such as those the PA readers won't get past page 1.

Only "pros" with street cred to burn can get away with line after line of:
- "Wilson's first impression of Los Angeles was blue."
- "the color he had always felt was nature's finest."
- "As far as Wilson could remember"
- etc.
- etc.
- etc.

Can't put thoughts, feelings, and remembrances on film.
Rookie nube ought not be including such in their spec screenplays.

Now, if all that's in a monologing V.O., well... then it's beautiful and fair game.

But don't do that in action lines.
Not for a spec screenplay.
Click to expand...

Yep, it breaks every rule in the book and should be avoided, but it's brilliant writing and it tells the reader immediately that he/she's in the hands of a master and would be insane to dismiss it. Of course, an entire script written like that wouldn't be a script, it'd be a novel.

Overall, if you're good enough to write a passage like that, you're probably good enough to break a few rules.
 
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- Read major film scripts as close to the original draft as possible for the writer's original "intent." A lot of production scripts seem to have a lot of writing washed out of them, perhaps by virtue of the many hands they've been through. Production scripts can be awfully bare bones, dry.
- Read the script before seeing the film. Your visual memory may "help" the script if you do it in reverse.
- As others have said, read un-produced screenplays whenever possible (and provide thoughtful critique to your fellow screenwriter, which helps codify your thinking on your current/next screenplay).

Aliens; Cameron, et al
Bad Day at Black Rock; M. Kaufman
Body Heat; Kasdan
--and many others...

Great thread, folks...
 
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