dlpwillywonka
08-23-2006, 07:14 PM
This is from my favorite writer forums. Wordplayer.com But instead of just linking you to it I'll just post the entire story. WHY the writer is important...
The Day I Showed Up on the Set & Saved the Studio a Million Dollars
Posted by Authority on Everything, The on Wednesday, 7 March 2001, at 7:55 p.m.
I read the other post about writers being on the set and had to tell this story. I've kept quiet about it for almost ten years. But it must be told. Here it is.
A true story.
Never told before in public.
Not even my writer friends know.
Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.
In the early part of the '90s, a script I wrote was greenlit and a movie made. It was a mostly happy, heady experience for me as the writer. It was less than a year between the day I thought up the idea for the movie while loading the dishwasher to the day it opened in theaters, a rare, short gestation in this business. I was the only writer on the project, always a wonderful thing. Except for lines from one actress, who thought dialog was only a suggestion for improvisation, every last word in the movie is mine.
Development was mostly pleasant although grueling in pace. I wrote the first draft very quickly and several very fast but comprehensive rewrites. The movie was greenlit only a few months after I typed "FADE IN:" on the first draft. Production started two months or so after the movie was greenlit. Two becoming-hot actors were interested in the project and had an available window. It was rush rush rush all the way. I was rewriting up until the day before principal began.
I got along okay with the director during development. Because pre-production was such a squeeze, he often wasn't as focused on the script as he would have been under other circumstances, so he usually left me alone. Like many of them are, he could be contemptuous when he thought he could get away with it, and charming when he had to be. He was not a man of small ego, but few directors are.
Once I turned in my last "third green" pages, I was thanked and sent on my way. I was invited to "stop by" some day during production, but otherwise it was understood that I, as the writer, had no place on the set.
This movie had two big set piece that accounted for a substantial part of the budget. Set Piece A was thirty-some pages into the script. Set Piece B was in the page sixty range. Somewhere around page forty, Miss I Don't Learn Lines I Improvise's character died.
A few weeks into production, I called the production office to see what day I could "stop by." I chose the first day Set Piece B would be shot. Set Piece B would be done over the course of more than a week. It was a big, big deal. It would be a fun day to be on the set, with lots of activity. Plus, I had picked Set Piece B because Miss Improvise's character would be dead and, let's just say, she was not my favorite person. Spending the day on the set without her would be more enjoyable.
So Set Visit Day comes and I show up about 9:30, just when the director is about to get off the first shot. It was a master with hundreds of extras, plus many of the principals, plus a fabulous set, you get the idea.
I'm on the set less than a minute and I see Miss Improvise, in costume, her makeup being touched up, all ready for the first master shot.
She's supposed to be dead. Dead for at least twenty pages.
I check with one of the PAs and they are indeed shooting Set Piece B. Nothing had changed. Miss Improvise was supposed to be in Set Piece A but had no lines. She was dead by the time Set Piece B rolled around.
So I say hello to one of the producers and ask, "Why is Miss Improvise here? Her character is dead?"
The producer looked at me with a deer-in-the-headlights face and said, "you sure?" I was beyond positive. It was like me saying I had tits and him asking if I was sure. Everyone had sides and only a few people had the complete script. As usual, the movie was being shot completely out of sequence. For whatever reason, Set Piece A was supposed to be filmed several weeks later, even though it fell earlier in the movie. So it took a few minutes for the producer to find the whole script. I pointed out the error instantly.
Still not convinced, the producer consulted with another of the producers. After a few minutes, they decided I was, in fact, right. If the scene was shot with Miss Improvisation, it would be a gigantic mess. Somehow she had erroneously been put in Set Piece B but not Set Piece A on the boards. Dozens of people had missed this mistake.
If this disaster had gone unnoticed, both set pieces would have had to be reshot almost entirely. Or at least Set Piece B, but it would have looked stupid for Miss Improvisation to be missing from Set Piece A. This was in the days before digital fixes. Every master from Set Piece B with Miss Improvisation would have been worthless. It would have cost a fortune to reshoot and that would have been the only way to fix it.
So back to the day I was on the set. The director is getting ready for the first take. The producer approaches him and whispers. There's a whispering give and take for a few minutes, lots of hand gesturing to the script and the sides, and then the producer points to me standing off with the other producer. Apparently still disbelieving this gigantic error he almost made, the director stomps over to me, whispering, "Are you absolutely sure? It doesn't say she's not in this scene on the page."
I couldn't believe they were still questioning me. Being the bossy broad sort that I am, I said something like, "[Director's name deleted], the bitch dies on page 40. You're shooting 62. What am I supposed to do, type on the top of every page for the rest of the script, `The Bitch Is Still Dead'?"
The director flipped through the script, said nothing more to me, walked over to the actress in question, and whispered to her, patting her on the back. She left the set, not without a withering look to me first.
No one but the producers, the director, the actress, and me knew about this gigantic ****up. It was just sort of quietly forgotten. It was never mentioned again. It was never mentioned in any of the puff pieces about the movie in print because it would have embarrassed The Great Director.
The Big Mistake was forgotten as if it had never happened. There was an unspoken agreement we would take it to our graves. The studio never knew.
Before the movie wrapped, I went to one of those places where you could get little bronze plaques made, with things like "World's Greatest Dad" or "Champion Lover" and the like.
I had one made for the director as a gift. Since I wasn't invited to the wrap party, I couldn't give it to him there. So I sent it to his office. I have no idea if he kept it. I doubt he thought it was funny. But I did.
The little bronze plaque read: "The Bitch Is Still Dead."
The writer is the one person who knows the script better than anyone else on the set. That's why the writer should always be there. If they can "afford" to pick up the tab for The Movie Star's Entourage of Seventeen, they can "afford" the writer.
The Day I Showed Up on the Set & Saved the Studio a Million Dollars
Posted by Authority on Everything, The on Wednesday, 7 March 2001, at 7:55 p.m.
I read the other post about writers being on the set and had to tell this story. I've kept quiet about it for almost ten years. But it must be told. Here it is.
A true story.
Never told before in public.
Not even my writer friends know.
Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.
In the early part of the '90s, a script I wrote was greenlit and a movie made. It was a mostly happy, heady experience for me as the writer. It was less than a year between the day I thought up the idea for the movie while loading the dishwasher to the day it opened in theaters, a rare, short gestation in this business. I was the only writer on the project, always a wonderful thing. Except for lines from one actress, who thought dialog was only a suggestion for improvisation, every last word in the movie is mine.
Development was mostly pleasant although grueling in pace. I wrote the first draft very quickly and several very fast but comprehensive rewrites. The movie was greenlit only a few months after I typed "FADE IN:" on the first draft. Production started two months or so after the movie was greenlit. Two becoming-hot actors were interested in the project and had an available window. It was rush rush rush all the way. I was rewriting up until the day before principal began.
I got along okay with the director during development. Because pre-production was such a squeeze, he often wasn't as focused on the script as he would have been under other circumstances, so he usually left me alone. Like many of them are, he could be contemptuous when he thought he could get away with it, and charming when he had to be. He was not a man of small ego, but few directors are.
Once I turned in my last "third green" pages, I was thanked and sent on my way. I was invited to "stop by" some day during production, but otherwise it was understood that I, as the writer, had no place on the set.
This movie had two big set piece that accounted for a substantial part of the budget. Set Piece A was thirty-some pages into the script. Set Piece B was in the page sixty range. Somewhere around page forty, Miss I Don't Learn Lines I Improvise's character died.
A few weeks into production, I called the production office to see what day I could "stop by." I chose the first day Set Piece B would be shot. Set Piece B would be done over the course of more than a week. It was a big, big deal. It would be a fun day to be on the set, with lots of activity. Plus, I had picked Set Piece B because Miss Improvise's character would be dead and, let's just say, she was not my favorite person. Spending the day on the set without her would be more enjoyable.
So Set Visit Day comes and I show up about 9:30, just when the director is about to get off the first shot. It was a master with hundreds of extras, plus many of the principals, plus a fabulous set, you get the idea.
I'm on the set less than a minute and I see Miss Improvise, in costume, her makeup being touched up, all ready for the first master shot.
She's supposed to be dead. Dead for at least twenty pages.
I check with one of the PAs and they are indeed shooting Set Piece B. Nothing had changed. Miss Improvise was supposed to be in Set Piece A but had no lines. She was dead by the time Set Piece B rolled around.
So I say hello to one of the producers and ask, "Why is Miss Improvise here? Her character is dead?"
The producer looked at me with a deer-in-the-headlights face and said, "you sure?" I was beyond positive. It was like me saying I had tits and him asking if I was sure. Everyone had sides and only a few people had the complete script. As usual, the movie was being shot completely out of sequence. For whatever reason, Set Piece A was supposed to be filmed several weeks later, even though it fell earlier in the movie. So it took a few minutes for the producer to find the whole script. I pointed out the error instantly.
Still not convinced, the producer consulted with another of the producers. After a few minutes, they decided I was, in fact, right. If the scene was shot with Miss Improvisation, it would be a gigantic mess. Somehow she had erroneously been put in Set Piece B but not Set Piece A on the boards. Dozens of people had missed this mistake.
If this disaster had gone unnoticed, both set pieces would have had to be reshot almost entirely. Or at least Set Piece B, but it would have looked stupid for Miss Improvisation to be missing from Set Piece A. This was in the days before digital fixes. Every master from Set Piece B with Miss Improvisation would have been worthless. It would have cost a fortune to reshoot and that would have been the only way to fix it.
So back to the day I was on the set. The director is getting ready for the first take. The producer approaches him and whispers. There's a whispering give and take for a few minutes, lots of hand gesturing to the script and the sides, and then the producer points to me standing off with the other producer. Apparently still disbelieving this gigantic error he almost made, the director stomps over to me, whispering, "Are you absolutely sure? It doesn't say she's not in this scene on the page."
I couldn't believe they were still questioning me. Being the bossy broad sort that I am, I said something like, "[Director's name deleted], the bitch dies on page 40. You're shooting 62. What am I supposed to do, type on the top of every page for the rest of the script, `The Bitch Is Still Dead'?"
The director flipped through the script, said nothing more to me, walked over to the actress in question, and whispered to her, patting her on the back. She left the set, not without a withering look to me first.
No one but the producers, the director, the actress, and me knew about this gigantic ****up. It was just sort of quietly forgotten. It was never mentioned again. It was never mentioned in any of the puff pieces about the movie in print because it would have embarrassed The Great Director.
The Big Mistake was forgotten as if it had never happened. There was an unspoken agreement we would take it to our graves. The studio never knew.
Before the movie wrapped, I went to one of those places where you could get little bronze plaques made, with things like "World's Greatest Dad" or "Champion Lover" and the like.
I had one made for the director as a gift. Since I wasn't invited to the wrap party, I couldn't give it to him there. So I sent it to his office. I have no idea if he kept it. I doubt he thought it was funny. But I did.
The little bronze plaque read: "The Bitch Is Still Dead."
The writer is the one person who knows the script better than anyone else on the set. That's why the writer should always be there. If they can "afford" to pick up the tab for The Movie Star's Entourage of Seventeen, they can "afford" the writer.