Process #5: Script Notes

Duly noted

So you’ve delivered the 1^st draft of your script and it is perfect.  Okay, maybe it’s not perfect, but you could probably go out and shoot it, as is.  Okay, maybe not probably, but if the worst came to the worst and you needed to shoot it, it would still be pretty good. Okay, maybe pretty good isn’t quite good enough to shoot, but you’re happy with the draft and, above all, you have delivered it.

Now come the notes.

Actually, what usually happens is you wait for the call praising you for your draft and the time and effort and heart and soul you clearly put into it.

And when that call never comes, there is instead a nerve-wracking silence that goes on for just long enough for you to become convinced that your draft was shit and everyone hates it.

And only then come the script notes.

If my memory serves me correct Joe Eszterhas, the big shot American screenwriter from the 1980’s and 90’s said something along the lines of: “When faced with notes, you have two choices.  To shred them or to burn them.”  Given that Joe wrote both Sliver and Showgirls, maybe he should have added a third option: read them, just in case.

Getting script notes is an inevitability when you are a jobbing scriptwriter.  Where once there was just you, your brain and a keyboard, now other people are clustered round your script, ready and willing to share their views and suggestions.  Figuring out what to do with this influx of opinions you didn’t know you needed is the rub, as they say.

Read everything, is a good place to start.  But immediately replying, telling people exactly what you think of their helpful notes, is rarely a good place to go next.  Let things simmer for a bit.  If you feel the need to write an email, by all means write it, but for God’s sake do not send it – especially if you find yourself writing it after midnight. 

Take a deep breath and trust the process.

The first thing to acknowledge is that notes come in different types, and it is important to recognise what kind of note you are dealing with.  Sometimes this takes time and several re-readings before things start to make sense.  Instead of simply being infuriating.

The best kind of notes are the ones where you go “why the fuck did I not think of that?” These notes you embrace immediately and being the process of: (a) taking credit for the idea; and (b) pretending that you did think of this – but you deliberately didn’t put it in the script, just to see if someone else would pick up on it.

Then there are the sort of notes that may or may not be good.  Or they might just be different, and therefore seem good because they are fresh and new.  There is often a perception, among note-givers, that quantitative changes to a script means it is getting better.  Personally I don’t buy into this theory.  Give me three small tweaks over a massive fucking rewrite any day of the week.

But that might just be me.

One phenomenon I have found, with notes of this ilk, is that they are often attempts to fix a perceived problem in the script. But if you consider the note for long enough, there are many times when while the problem is valid, the fix actually lies elsewhere in the script.  So you fix that bit instead and hope it does the trick.

Moving down the pecking order, the next layer of notes falls into the “I guess I can live with that” zone. It is here that the status of the person giving you the notes comes into play. Are they above you in the food chain? If so, then go ahead and live with the changes.  If it doesn’t hurt and it keeps people happy to know they’re being listened to, then that just makes life so much easier going forward.  No harm, no foul.

But now we’re deep heading into the grey zone, where you start to fundamentally disagree with the notes, as given.  First thing to consider: if I choose to ignore this note, will it come back and bite me on the arse?  Because there are definitely those in the process for whom the giving of the note is way more important than the note itself.  I write notes therefore I am.  Notes given – job done – tick – move on to the next thing in my busy day.

The rule of thumb here is that if you ignore the note and it comes back to haunt you later on, then so be it.  Or you lie and say you forgot to do it.  Not that I would ever condone lying as part of the creative process.

Now we’re down the in dungeon marked OMDB (Over My Dead Body). 

Sometimes, when faced with an influx of script notes it is hard for the writer to remember that they too have rights in this process – specifically the right to stand up for your own work. Of course, stomping round shouting OMDB probably isn’t the best way to deal with these notes – even when you really really want to.  This is an ego-driven business after all, so getting these egos all bent out of shape really does not contribute to a happy and healthy work environment.  Been there, made that mistake.

There is no easy way out of the OMDB dungeon.  The least worst way I have stumbled across is to write your own succinct, hopefully polite, notes on the notes and to open a dialogue with the note-giver.  Yes, this can spiral out of control and before too long you find yourself writing notes about the notes on the notes on the notes about the notes on the script notes.  The upside to this is that usually, by then, everyone has forgotten what the original note was.

I guess the upshot to all this, apart from notes being an inevitable part of the process, is that writers need to remember that they have rights in the process.  The right to believe in your work.  Not to be intransigent or deliberately obstructive to the process when it comes to notes, but to keep faith in the belief that you, as the creator, know this project better than anyone else.  They are visitors; you live here.

The single worst thing a note-giver, in this case a script editor, has ever said to me, as we argued over a script note on a project that shall remain nameless, was that if I didn’t make the change, then they would, in the edit. The note had become an order.  I was reminded, in no uncertain terms, of my place in the process.

In that case, I stuck to my guns and I won.  The script remained unchanged.  But the exchange has remained with me across the years as a lesson in how script notes can be an absolute minefield, through which the writer must tip-toe. 

Tread carefully, is the best advice I can offer.

And now, from the self-same project actually, a quick anecdote to wrap up what has become a longer rant than I had anticipated….

Sometimes it is the timing of the note that is the problem, more than the note itself. 

I was at a meeting. We were at the production company offices, gathered round their boardroom table, for what was essentially the script sign-off meeting.  Shooting was imminent and this meeting was about final tweaks and so forth. 

Except that the head of the production company decided to join us and decided this was the time and place to pitch their Great Idea for the thing we were just about to make.  Now the Great Idea itself, was not a bad idea.  Had it come early in the process, it certainly would have been worthy of serious consideration.  But there and then, it would have stopped the process in its tracks while I went back and rewrote pretty much the whole damn script, to accommodate the Great Idea.

Silence. 

Tumbleweeds.

Then the producer of the thing turned to me.

“James, what do you think of that idea?”

Having been thrown under the bus, I tried to gently explain that while this was an interesting idea, the ramifications it had, given the looming shoot date, were quite huge.

I thought I was being very tactful about the whole thing.

Then I realised the head of the production company was quietly crying.

Then they left the meeting, citing another meeting they needed to get to.

Silence. Everyone left in the room, looking at me.

Tumbleweeds. Me wondering what I’d said wrong and coming up blank.

Script notes. A freakin’ minefield, I’m telling you.