Blog #1 A Boys Life

The screenplay A Boy’s Life, by Melissa Mathison was one of the most time consuming pieces I have ever read. After two hours of struggling through the pages, I had made it only half way through the script. It was difficult because it was the first script I have ever read through. So the style of the writing took a while to get used to. In a novel, sentences transition well because the words are meant to be read; while in a script, the story being told was meant to be seen, not read. One sentence would be about one event, and instantly the scene would change to another location for the next sentence. This made it harder to concentrate on the story after pages of constant scene changes.
I felt a lot more comfortable reading the last half when I was able to begin reading the script as a movie instead of reading it as a piece of literature. I took a while to get to that point, but once I did, reading the script became more enjoyable than most novels. Just like the writing format for script is substantially different than other modes of written communication, reading script is also very different. Any person who is not familiar with reading scripts would not get nearly as much out of a script as someone who has read, or written, them before.

Daniel Voisard


Discussion Questions:

Claudia Sternberg quotes Ernest Lehman in her book Written for the Screen.
“A lot of people read it (the screenplay)-agents, directors, actors, producers,
financiers-and it should, if possible, read well.”

Do you agree with his statement?

Could making a script easier to read take away from the quality of the film?