Film Courage: Can you tell us the reasons why being a screenwriter
is impossible? Glenn Gers, Screenwriter:
Yeah, absolutely. That actually in many ways I would advise no one to be a screenwriter. It
is by far one of the dumbest arts to try and be in other than maybe a large-scale architecture.
The first thing about screenwriting is you're never getting to finish the work in other
words you get to finish the script but it's not available to an audience until it's made by other
people. So basically you're creating something in order to give to a bunch of other people so
they'll create another thing and frankly a different thing. The thing that's based in
your script is a production and it will change in many ways. So if you really are like I can totally
picture this movie in my head and that's why I'm writing it, get over it. It will never ever be
like that even in the greatest of circumstances where things are better than you want.
It will never be as you imagine. But honestly I believe that's the creative process itself
when you imagine a script it actually comes out differently than you first imagined it or what
you think. The process of transforming anything into a concrete work out of an abstract thought
changes it and honestly when a reader reads it, it's going to change again because when you say
he wore a red tie they're going to picture a different red tie that you're picturing
and you have to be able to accept that. You have to be able to accept that the script is a
a piece of a project that you will not have any control over. So that's number one is unless
you really like that process of doing something for other people to work from, it's frustrating
and I know actually a lot of writers get very irritated with actors and directors
which is too bad because they should be more respectful of the other arts but they're like
they didn't say that like I thought they should. Like I know how that line should go
and that's not how it works the line goes how it goes in their mouth.
The actor has to be free to act the way they would act it and if you are depending on them
saying it exactly the way you imagined it which is frankly not on the page it's not going to happen.
So writing (screenwriting) is more frustrating than most types of writing but then not only that,
among most types of writing you have less control because you don't own the copyright to your work.
If you're a novelist or a playwright or any other kind of writer you own your work. They
can't...somebody may put pressure on you. You know we won't publish it unless you change it but they
actually can't change it if you write a script and you sell it to a company for various reasons
having to do with the ability to unionize back in the 1930's. Screenwriters gave up their right to
own their creative work which means when you hire on to write something they can fire you and have
someone else rewrite it and you cannot do anything about it and that always sounds like Oh that'll be
fine. I'll live with that. It hurts. Everyone gets fired. Everyone gets rewritten. Most of my career
was rewriting other people and I had to be aware of the fact that somebody out there is grinding
their teeth and cursing my name when if I do well. So screenwriting is just a tough business.
Then you get to the fact that for most writers now you're going to be working on a staff of a
show which means it's not even your idea. You are one of a bunch of people contributing ideas and
the actual writer of the show, the creator, the showrunner is going to be saying yes to that,
no to that. That line is good, that line is good, we'll put them together. You may get
creative satisfaction, you may be doing grunt work, you may also I mean on a feature I wrote
there was an introductory scene of a character that I just hated the way the producers wanted
this character to be introduced. They thought she was cute and I thought she was reprehensible
and I kept saying do you really want her to say that? And they're like yeah we think it's funny
and I was like I didn't have a choice. I had to write the scene the way they asked for it or I
would be fired or someone else would be hired to replace or rewrite that scene. That's not what
most people picture as being an artist. It's not what most people picture as being a writer
but I can go on. The number of reasons that you shouldn't be a screenwriter are enormous.
The reasons that most people want to be screenwriters are misleading. First of
all they think and it's true you are very, very highly paid if you are a working screenwriter. In
the unions in the studio system, the network system,
that is a very small percentage of the people who are trying to be writers. So
it's like saying I want to be a baseball player and you're imagining I'm going to be major league.
Most people are not going to be major league. The question is would you stop
playing baseball then and I can't imagine saying I want to be an artist
but only if they'll pay me first. That's not how generally arts should work.
Most people imagine that screenwriters have a...get to come to the writer because honestly
and this is a problem of the screenwriting industry, everyone who teaches they're all
saying like It all begins with the script! The script is so important and you get all
these actors and directors are saying, and it's true they choose a good script to work on, it's
like we couldn't do this without the script and wannabe screenwriters are like I'm so important
and I promise you, you're not. They are going to change your work. They are going to misinterpret
your work. that's just part of the job. You are providing a beginning to someone else's creative
process and so that's a hard thing to almost every screenwriter I know is looking for a creative
outlet. They're looking for...they're writing novels on the side or plays or they're painting or
whatever and you wouldn't think that's what being a successful screenwriter is but truthfully
it is a job. It's a glorious job and when it works right you have these amazing experiences
where talented people take your work and they like your arc and they do stuff and it works
and then it goes out to a big audience and that's a little tiny slice of the experience.
The things i've had made were amazing. They're only two-three percent of what I actually worked
on. Most of what I've worked on no one will ever hear of. It's trapped in some company's
vault somewhere or in my drawer because no one bought it and I'm talented, I'm good,
I'm successful, I'm in the union, I'm highly paid and most of what I write is rejected.
So yeah be a painter if you can because at least you get done, you have the finished painting.
But the flip side of that, so that I don't just discourage the heck out of everybody,
the flip side is if you get good at it you learn certain skills about narrative and character
that are invaluable no matter what else you try to do creatively. If you want to be a director,
it's great to know what screenwriting really is, what a scene and a character really are.
It's very important to understand how much the character's motivation, the character's goal,
the thing they're trying to do that's crucial and if you're writing a novel it's just as important
and if you're writing a graphic novel or a video game whatever it is, those basic
ideas about a character, wanting something and having a difficult time getting it,
that is the center of any kind of narrative creativity and screenwriting pushes that
harder than most if you can learn it. In screenwriting you can do it anywhere. So
it's sort of good to learn to be a screenwriter because then you've got a skill set
if you decide to work in video games great! You're going to be really, really set.
Film Courage: And when you were temping in New York City, were you attempting to be an author or
it was when you wrote that play and then you saw it was sort of goldman-esque and you thought
let's do screenwriting? Glenn: No ever since I was like a kid when I see something I want to
do it like paint. I was painting for a while. I was drawing. I was writing plays. I was trying
to direct movies. I was trying to write movies on Super 8 silent film which means I had to actually
learn how to make silent movies so I like to say I came up in silent film. It was in the 1970's but
that was all they had then if you were going to make if you're a high school student you want to
make a movie they had eight millimeter home movie cameras. I would make silent movies I
tried to write novels because i love novels, plays because I love plays. I have a dangerous desire to
do absolutely anything I see. So no I was always doing all of it and I would sort of shift my focus
depending on what was practical. When I was in high school I got tired of silent movies. It
was frustrating to not have any dialogue but high school they had plays so I started to write plays.
High school and college I did plays. I got out of college I was sort of thinking of writing plays,
sort of thinking of writing novels, but screenwriting I thought that would pay
for all of them. If I could get screenwriting jobs I could afford to do everything else and then for
12 years I was an office temp and couldn't afford to do anything except write in my off time. But
the theory always was I was going to do it all and screenwriting was just the most lucrative which
is what everybody thinks and you know yeah for the major leagues, it's very lucrative for the rest of
us, it's not and you should really want to do it. You should love doing it even if no one pays you.
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