CineMontage

Q3 2019

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63 Q3 2019 / CINEMONTAGE The author also employs examples of scripts, old and new, good and bad, to make points. Slumdog Millionaire (2008) is used to demonstrate a script- planned montage sequence, while The Bourne Identity (2002) serves to illustrate an action scene that Loftin likens to a "kinetic poem." An entire chapter is devoted to extended analysis of the opening of City of God (2002), a sequence that employs many of Loftin's concepts. Analogies between film writing/editing and poetry appear throughout the book. Murch is quoted discussing the juxtapositional qualities of these, and Loftin offers the first stanza of Wallace Stevens' poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" as an example of poetry that could be action lines in a screenplay: "Across twenty snowy mountains The only moving thing Was the eye of a blackbird" A different author might make such comparisons sound overly theoretical or academic, but Loftin's easygoing and highly readable style allows his concepts to be accessible as well as contemplative. Writing for the Cut presents quite serious ideas and challenging exercises in a light, cheerful tone that belies their importance and guides the reader on to the next chapter and, one hopes, writing better screenplays. Loftin argues that films, particularly big-budget features, could be made in less time and with more economy, to say nothing of less agony, if editorial thinking was applied in the script rather than after shooting. He advises that a good way to test the strength of a story is to give the script to the film editor before production, and quotes Coates: "When you read the script, you think, 'Oh well. They probably won't shoot that,' and then they do. And when you cut those scenes out they mostly don't mind... But it's something they can't seem to take out at that early stage. And I know as the editor it's not going to be in the final cut." Loftin offers practical exercises at the end of each chapter. He advises writers to learn to edit a filmed drama on free or cheap software, and to download a practice package from editstock.com. Writers can improve their storytelling ability by devoting time to the skills of picture editing. Screenwriters are not often invited into the cutting room, but perhaps a conversation between writers and editors would not irrevocably damage Hollywood protocol. f CUT / PRINT

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