Collaboration... from the screenwriter's POV

FADE IN:

INT. COMMERCIALIZED COFFEE SHOP - NIGHT

Two young artists command a table normally reserved for six. One is tall and softening from too much time away from the gym. He is in his late-20s. This is JEREMY. His cohort, sipping on a fresh latte, is the energy of the room. Focused, determined, early-20s, this is COLE.

Two LAPTOPS are opened before them. We join them in mid-conversation.

COLE
That's exactly what I was thinking.
And how about we try...

JEREMY
And then we just move this here,
take this over here... yeah... that's
gonna work.

That's one way to look at it. Jeremy here... musing on the symbiotic relationship that is the writer-director. In any film, there is a person (or people) who pen the script. The screenwriter(s). And then there's a director. The one who has to take the pages and put them onto the screen. And both sides of the coin have their own vision of what it will look like. One creates. The other interprets.

And I imagine there are varying levels of interaction between writer and director as you move through the pantheon of film. There are those that option a script, sell it, and step back as new writers come in to rewrite, reinvent, and depending on your viewpoint, destroy or improve your work. And there are those films where the screenwriter stays very, very involved. And perhaps, a few instances that fall along the in between.

Cole recently posted on this topic and brought up an idea that I'm used to seeing in theatre, and excited to see happening in film. Collaboration. As he mentioned, the script has been tightened and trimmed, and in parts, it's already evolved from its staged predecessor. As I began working with Cole and John on adapting the play, we spent hours on Skype, over email, taking up workspace at any local coffee shop that served anything worth drinking, and began to answer some of the big questions that were never fully tackled in the play. I won't give away state secrets here, but rest assured that moments of frustrating ambiguity you might have experienced if you've seen the play have been addressed to offer a more complete story arc that's more suited to film. And that was born out of many, many talks between the three of us.

Going into this new partnership, I (the writer) took a moment to think about how Cole (the director) might approach this. And then I realized two things. I'm not a mind-reader. And he just blogged about it. So, I stopped and thought about how I've directed others' writing in the past.

When I direct for theatre, I aim to realize the script as I feel the writer intended. And that choice effects how I direct actors to emote, how the pacing flows, and everything down to a costume or prop selection. And then I have to wonder if it's what the author even intended. In 2007, I directed a show called "Darkside". And it was well received. Awards were bestowed from the people in Columbus and Ohio who bestow such awards. And then, I went to see that very show, directed by the very man who wrote it, Ken Jones. We clearly had different visions for that story. Some similarities were there—mostly in the set and costumes and the number of actors on stage (actually, even there we found a way to differ).

And so I think, how great would it have been to have had Ken there to bounce ideas around with and get him to talk about why this character does what he does and all that. Make it a dialogue. The kicker? We're now connections on LinkedIn and he sent me three of his plays as a gift.

Point is, there's a want in any artist to produce the best art. Creating a conversation about a script between writer and director is one way to help ensure that happening. So, that brings us to the now, as the screenwriter (me) and the director (Cole) sit down and begin the task of polishing Separation Anxiety to the best it can be.



That's us. Being collaborators.

I was reading an interview recently featuring screenwriter Christopher Wilkinson, who co-wrote Nixon and Ali, among others. And in talking about his writing relationship with Stephen Rivele (Nixon, Ali) he made a wonderful observation about collaboration which I think is at the heart of how we are approaching the final stretch of rewrites for Separation Anxiety: "And we have absolutely no ego about the writing process; we will go with whoever has the best idea, scene to scene and line by line. If we don't agree, we go with whoever can make the most compelling or passionate case for a character, story turn, whatever."

I value Cole's artistic opinion and he value's mine, so I'm excited about the end result that sits upon the horizon. I'll be honest, Separation Anxiety is intensely personal for me, and so I won't be surprised if there are moments (as Cole mentioned) where I dig in my heels. And those heel-digging nights will be for those compelling cases that Wilkinson talks about. But in the end, I will always pen the words that serve the story in the best possible way. That is my ultimate goal with anything I write. What serves the story and the characters? And this is the one thing that any screenwriter and director need to agree on. Making the best art. Serving the story.

Thanks for reading. Coming up later in the week is a special guest posting from our Sound Designer, Jordan Fehr. Until next time...

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Answer #1... When the words aren't making sense

Jeremy here. Answer time. A few days ago, we got a question and Cole was nice enough to field it my way as it had to do with how we approach things in the script that aren't working, or maybe won't ring true at second blush. The short answer? We fix it.

(insert canned laughter here)

And that's where rewrites come into play. For example, if this post were a sitcom, I'd know that the "fix it" line bombed a little bit and I would promptly strike it out of existence. Since this answer deals with rewrites, I posted it AFTER my normal weekly blog, which dealt with creation.

Rewrites. Some writers hate them and other can't get enough. I'm of the latter variety. I want the script to be in top-form. As Cole mentioned, there was a massive rewrite about a week or so ago. Now, that sounds drastic. The story is still very much intact. It's just trimmed. It got liposuction—trimming out the fat to such a degree that it dropped nearly 30 pages. 30 pages that weren't working.

How do I know it's not working? I read it. Over and over and over. And then I have John and Cole read it. Over and over and over. And everyone makes suggestions.

Each time we read the script, we look for the best and the worst of everything. I need to make sure I keep the good stuff, but I also want to continually rid the script of flaws... connect the dots... and make it, you know... boss. So we look for dialogue that's klunky. Or perhaps some scene doesn't work because we moved it or rewrote its lead-in. And any number of things might work in draft 4 but not in draft 31.

The movie script has been changed in numerous ways from its staged counterpart. The screenplay went through several drafts to get itself adapted. And there are scenes we couldn't do on stage that we're free to do now.

So we keep rewriting and polishing. And then there's more reading. And it keeps getting better.

Thanks for the question!

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Stage to Screen: The Guy Who Was There Both Times

I’m up early this morning to make my self-set deadline of Friday for this blog. I was up until 1AM last night listening to music from this dream team of artists that have sent their material our way to be considered for the soundtrack. In some cases, I think we really struck gold. The trailer will testify to that in a matter of days. It’s surreal to me.

I’ll begin this topic with a bit of back story, and we’ll go on from there.

From Stage to Screen

The Theatrical Production

About a year ago I was heading into tech week for Separation Anxiety at the Curtain Player’s Playwrights Festival. This annual festival took place during the winter (now summer) where, unlike their regular season where they perform the show for three weekends, three brand new pieces are performed for one weekend each.

When I first read Sep as a play, I found myself compelled by the idea of it. The decisions were bold and unforgiving. I turned page after page to see what would happen next. However, that’s not to say that it was without it’s flaws. The play w

as verbose (which I usually don’t mind as much but generally, it’s something to avoid), it had some factual flaws that, if scrutinized, would blow holes into the entire plot.

And because the Playwrights Festival took place over the christmas season, rehearsals were

 limited. We were only afforded one session with the playwright to make sense of things with him in the room and request changes. O

therwise, we were to make due.

As the show ended, I had grown a lot with Bailey. Separation Anxiety was my first bit of theatre outside of college, just after I’d finished directing Glass City. I’d grown because Bailey, along with the other characters and due to the limitatio

ns of the Christmas holiday, hadn’t been given the ideal TLC of a playwrights festival (hence the excitement for moving it to the summer). Where Bailey was underdeveloped I found myself doing a lot more work on my own to justify certain actions and decisions, especially pertaining to the big decision that is ultimately asked of Bailey. I added a brava

do 

to him. A certain infuriating sense of mysterious confidence that “worked” for the character but really was the smoke and mirrors effect to mask someone who was altogether an unanswered question.

Opting Sep for a Film

Since working with John on Glass City we both realized we need to jump at the chance to work with each other again. In late December we’d just finished up a marvelous and hurdle-ridden short called Rendezvous and decided we would keep enabling each other. John respected my instincts for finding good artists and good mater

ial. I respected John’s passionate yet fair sense of filmmaking and his ability to spot a success, among other things. I mentioned the script to him, but sat on it until running it by the writer, Jeremy Sony. At a closing night cast party, when I asked him and got a very shocked or somewhat befuddled “yes” I timidly s

ent it to John in a sort of “There-might-be-something-here-but-I-like-the-story-and-the-characters-could-be-great-I-hope-you-don’t-think-I’m-a-fool-because-I-know-it-needs-work.” You know...THAT sort of timidness.

What I got back from him was startling.

~Cole:

Just finished reading.

It's beautiful.  It's absolutely beautiful.  There are scenes in this

that sparkle and crackle with brilliant resonance, and what it lacks in

subtlety at points, it makes up for with wondrous feeling and heart.

My first thoughts:

~

  So, what we’ve just done is Opted the Script. Nice.

Re-writes

There are certain aspects of working with people I’ve come to develop that is a litmus test for true collaborative artists. Jeremy is a wonderful collaborative artist. When we sat down for dinner after the play had closed with the specific intention of discussing screenplay options, I had never really talked to him before besides in passing. As I’ve said, one of the frustrating aspects of the theatrical production is how much the writer was not actually in the room with us. So, here I sit, a 22 year old freshly graduated collegiate, meeting for the first time with playwright/director Jeremy Sony about his play that I was

 just in, and oh yeh, he’s 7 years my senior.

The beginning started as cordial and pretty nervous, maybe a little awkward.

And then I remembered the point.  We want to make Sep into a film. That tells him already that we love the script. But the difference is that we want to raise a lot of money for this and pay everyone what’s fair. So, that being said, the notes I give him on re-writes from myself and John might come off as harsh, but he should remember it’s because we think he’s really good.

And he never needed reminding of that. It seemed he was thirsty for hardcore criticism. So

mething that is hard to find in a theatre community, which is someone who both knows what they

’re talking about mixed with being honest and truthful enough to challenge you to get better. I think Jeremy

 and I first bonded on that, and a beautiful friendship has since stemmed. But we’ll see what he says later this weekend.

That is what I mean by collaborative artist. Jeremy sets out to do his part of the job in the rewrites as he is the one responsible for them. However, at the same time, we all have a hand in it. Because what he doe

s effects us and what we do in our jobs effects him. Jeremy does so well in film/theatre becau

se he respects how it MUST be collaborative.

Bailey

Bailey’s transformation from the stage to screen is born in the re-writes. Jeremy is working hard to get much more specific with each character, especially the “children” Quinn, Jess, and Bai. Where, as I mentioned, Bailey had an infuriating sense of confidence before, Jeremy has done a wonderful job making him more sensitive and embracing his flaws as well as his virtues, while keeping the truth, which is that Bai likes to make light of everything. With Jeremy as the director/writer of the project, I have been able to meet with him fairly frequently simply to ask questions about the Baile

y and to offer up my own answers. Bailey has grown in his sensitivity, his goals, and his perhaps crippling insecurities.

Questions

Ultimately, I have a list of things that I want to talk about here regarding putting a play on scree

n. But this is

 carrying on and I don’t want to lose you. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments b

elow or email us at ou

r movie Gmail! Jeremy Sony is next, due up by Sunday. Happy New Year everyone!

Cole Simon

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