Unlocking your screenplay...

Yesterday I was talking with a colleague of mine, a successful screenwriter, who was dumbfounded by the number of student writers she has recently worked with who didn't understand the importance of breaking down characters' actions into small pieces.  That it is in small, seemingly insignificant actions that a story is allowed to come fully to life and tremendous truths are revealed.

I was reminded again of Stanislavski in An Actor Prepares as his acting teacher Tortsov says to his students in Chapter 8 (see my first post on this book from a couple of weeks back):

"Since it is impossible to take control of the whole at once, we must break it up and absorb each piece separately...When you cannot believe in the larger action you must reduce it to smaller and smaller proportions until you can believe it."

What I find interesting is that what Stanislavski is telling his student actors could just as easily be told to writers learning their craft.  In fact, so much of what he says pertains directly to the writing process.  And, of course, that makes perfect sense seeing the material the actor works with is generated by us, the writers.

He goes on:

"Perhaps you do not even yet realize that from believing in the truth of one small action an actor can come to feel himself in his part and to have faith in the reality of the whole play."

Just substitute the word "writer" for "actor" and you have a basic truth in the writing process:  that action is the central driving force of any screenplay (or play for that matter) and that often it's the small, specific actions that hold the keys to good storytelling and the creation of a script that lifts off the page.

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Our last residency ran January 3-11, 2016 and we are still considering applications for starting the program with our July 2016 residency that runs July 21-31.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter), a professional script consultant, and the author of The Playwrights Process.

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MFA scriptwriting program spreading its wings...

A few weeks back--March 28 to be exact--a group of theatre artists who are a part of our MFA program in Writing for Stage and Screen staged a reading at the historic Players Club in NYC.  The script was To Moscow by our faculty member Karen Sunde.  The director was Robert Lawson, also on our faculty.  The producer was Steve Ashworth from Edmonton, Canada, a recent graduate of our program.  And two of the lead actors, Lisa Bostnar and Gordan Clapp, are members of our program's acting ensemble.  To top it off, a large group of current students, faculty, and alums were in the packed audience and were a part of the talk-back session following the reading.

That's playwright Karen Sunde sitting on the stage, producer Steve Ashworth standing next to her, Gordon Clapp behind Steve, and Lisa Bostnar (in pink) with the other actors.

And here is the write up of the reading in the Greenwich Village paper Westview News.

I mention this event because it's a great example of what goes on with a writer's work once it starts to hit the development arena.  The hopes are that this project will experience a bigger life with this collected ensemble of artists.  And it also is a testament to our MFA program and our commitment to helping all of our writers get their work launched into the world and brought to life on the boards. For as we find ourselves constantly explaining, a script is a means to an end and not an end in itself.

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Our last residency ran January 3-11, 2016 and we are now considering applications for starting the program with our July 2016 residency that runs July 21-31.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter), a professional script consultant, and the author of The Playwrights Process.

 

Stanislavski and scriptwriting...

I'm re-reading An Actor Prepares and I'm struck with the degree to which Stanislavski--the preeminent master teacher of the art of acting--is in many ways also speaking to writers at the same time.

In this classic text, he carefully illustrates how the actor, in preparing his/her work, must develop a process with an intentional progression, exploring "given circumstances" and playing with the "magic if" among other techniques in such a way as to open the doors of the imagination and tap into the treasure trove of creativity that lies hidden under the surface in the subconscious.

"...Our art teaches us first of all to create consciously and rightly because that will best prepare the way for the blossoming of the subconscious, which is inspiration."

And:

"Our subconscious power cannot function without its own engineer--our conscious technique."

And he keeps hammering home this truth as he progresses, all of his lessons famously being described in detail by his student Kostya Nazvanov.  Stanislavski, through the voice of the teacher Tortsov, also demands that the actor focus on the backstory of the character being portrayed and the necessity of bringing to life the subtext underlying the actual words, and on and on...

My point is that much of the book reads like a manual for writers as they dive into their pre-draft exploratory work on character and story, much like an actor must do in preparing for a role.

Well worth taking a look.

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Our last residency ran January 3-11, 2016 and we are now considering applications (deadline in June 1) for starting the program with our July 2016 residency that runs July 21-31.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter), a professional script consultant, and the author of The Playwrights Process.