How Does a Screenwriter Spend a Workday?
Other People Are Reading
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New Day for Hollywood
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The old system is gone, and no longer are screenwriters' offices found in neat little bungalows on the back lots of the big movie studios. But that doesn't mean screenwriters are disappearing too. In fact, screenwriters are needed not just for the movies but for original DVDs, TV shows and made-for-TV movies, computer games and business and educational applications.
Movie Sets Everywhere
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A screenwriter for a movie may go to its filming location to check dialogue, or over to the wardrobe department to find out if the actors are able to move in their costumes as she envisioned. There are a lot of people on a movie set who have input on the script you've written: the director may want you to completely re-write a scene, because he's interpreting it differently from what the original script portrayed, or an actor doesn't agree with the lines you want her to say. The producer may want some lines added or subtracted because the movie's financial backers would be offended by what the script says.
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Your Name Here
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Watching the actors bring your ideas from paper to the big screen is the greatest thrill for a screenwriter, second only to seeing your name up on that big movie screen after "Written by." But on a smaller scale, many screenwriters get a great deal of satisfaction from compliments from teachers who write to say their students understand a subject much better, due to the DVD they saw in class.
Markets
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With satellite and cable TV shows being made in staggering numbers, screenwriters may work for specific channels or news organizations. Sometimes a series may be needed on a complicated subject, like health issues and cures, or how the human mind works, or following wild animals as they live in the jungle, the desert or the plains. Screenwriters have to pull together a lot of information from many different sources for TV shows like these, and take complicated subjects and constantly plan how they could be presented visually while writing explanations, history or dialogue. They must also be prepared to spend many hours researching things like weapons, social customs and obscure bits of history. So a screenwriter doesn't usually spend all day writing, whether in a home office or at an employer's office.
And More Markets
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Training films and instructional DVDs for the military and business must be written too. For example, it's a lot easier for sales people to learn to sell a specific product if they can watch a film of someone doing just that before they make their first sales call on a customer. Even independent filmmakers sometimes hire a screenwriter for a movie project. If you're good with words, know your grammar and other rules of English usage, and can write a scene as you "see" it being acted in your mind, you're well on your way to being a screenwriter.
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Resources
- Photo Credit Microsoft Office clip file
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Comments
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I spend my day writing and working with my team of screenwriters and editors.
