How important is the script.

[Ron Aberdeen]

As a writer I’ve always believed that the script is the beginning, the foundation and the plan that everyone else works to.
Agreed that producers and directors will take a script and amend, vary and put their own stamp on it, for production.
Films are mostly remembered by who directed it, or who stared in it, not by who wrote it.
Why is that?
When we buy books, often it is because we like the author. Surely a director brings an interpretation of a script to the screen, helped by the producer, but both are working to a blueprint written by somebody else.
With most famous buildings we recognise the architect not the builder. We recognise the designer not the painter.
So why doesn’t the scriptwriter get the recognition deserved.
Could it be that many writers, particularly in their early days, devalue their own work? Desperate to get work they will write scripts for producers and directors on spec.
Spend two to three hundred hours working, honing and finishing a script they don’t even know if they will get paid for?
Placing begging posts on sites like this, “I will write a spec script”.
Accept unreasonable deals in the hope that their script will be produced.
If writers devalue their work then others will as well.
Actors are only as good as the lines and character created in the script. Set designs, costumes, lighting, even cinematography, only happen based on a script.
Producers make their initial investment decision based on a script, directors are attracted to a project because of the script.
How often have you heard an actor say, “when I read the script I knew the part was for me”.
A script is like a vacant lot, a producer is a property investor, a director the interior designer and the actors the painters and decorators, all helped by other crew members.
But first of all the producer has to acquire the vacant lot.
Sell yourself cheap by all means, but don’t sell your work cheap. It devalues every writers efforts.
Believe in yourself and others will as well

[dave moore]

Well said. Although most writers know that when trying to sell a script it can be the hardest hurdle depending on who the buyer is.
If selling to a studio, usually the finished article will be nothing like the script, unless it really is a masterpiece.

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