A Quote by Nick Cave

I became a script writer with absolutely no idea of how to write a script whatsoever. I still feel a bit of an outsider in that regard. If I can maintain that approach to screenwriting, it can continue to be enjoyable.
You know, my problem with most screenwriting is it is a blueprint. It's like they're afraid to write the damn thing. And I'm a writer. That's what I do. I want it to be written. I want it to work on the page first and foremost. So when I'm writing the script, I'm not thinking about the viewer watching the movie. I'm thinking about the reader reading the script.
Before, I was writing a script to make a movie. At a certain point, I became A Writer in Film and Television. So I got TV deals to write stuff, film deals to write stuff. But it's dangerous. I got into the WGA, and I became kind of, you know, a slave! They just pay you to write a script, and it's hard to make the movies.
It slightly depends on your perspective, sort of how you look at these things, but when I sit down to write a script, I'm not planning to write a script; I'm planning to make a film, and so I only see the script as being just a step there.
As a writer myself, my job has very often been to also write on the job. So you get the script and a vague idea of how the scene might work, and you then add funny words or change the script. I'm not the world's best writer or the world's best actor, but I can do that thing where I can fix - or ruin - fix-slash-ruin, add quirk, add value.
That was, in writing the 'Twilight' script I had about five weeks to write that. I'd taken about a month to write the outline and then it was slam into a script and write it down fast because the writer's strike was looming.
I wrote the script of Patton. I had this very bizarre opening where he stands up in front of an American flag and gives this speech. Ultimately, I was fired. When the script was done, they hired another writer and that script was forgotten.
Acting's incredibly enjoyable, but sometimes it doesn't feel quite enough. I've also written a script about the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine. This will make me sound like a female Kenneth Branagh, but I can't think of anything nicer than directing myself from a script I wrote.
I usually write very few stage directions. I think a lot of that is a waste of time. The art of screenwriting is in its terseness, saying a lot with a little. I have no patience when I read a script where the writer describes this guy and what he's wearing and his glasses and his hair.
Sometimes directors feel a script needs something, but they're not sure what it is, so they show it to a friend; if the friend is a writer, he ends up kicking around with that script for a while.
We see only the script and not the paper on which the script is written. The paper is there, whether the script is on it or not. To those who look upon the script as real, you have to say that it is unreal - an illusion - since it rests upon the paper. The wise person looks upon both paper and script as one.
'Quantum of Solace' was a bit of a different circumstance than a lot of my other films because you're stepping into a franchise, and also in that particular film, we're dealing with a script from the writer's strike, which was difficult to handle because there was never time to really develop a finished script.
I would love to write a script, for sure. I write poetry and songs. But writing a script needs a lot of time and discipline.
One of the nice things about the world of filmmaking is that you make friends in the business. Sometimes directors feel a script needs something, but they're not sure what it is, so they show it to a friend; if the friend is a writer, he ends up kicking around with that script for a while.
A script writer usually manipulates his characters in accordance to the script.
First, you need to write the script, re-work on lots of things. First draft, second draft, once the final script is ready then you visualize which actors fits the role in that the particular script they've written.
I've never read a book or attended a class on screenwriting. I'm not opposed to the idea, but I like what I've got going on naturally and want to protect that. The one question I will ask myself as I'm re-reading a script for the 60th time is, 'Am I entertained? Still?' If the answer is 'yes,' I'll assume other people will be, too.
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