Excerpt From Monty Python's The Meaning of Life:
MAITRE D
You know, Maria, I sometimes wonder if
we'll ever discover the meaning of it
all working in a place like this.
MARIA
Oh, I've worked in worse places,
philosophically speaking.
MAITRE D
Really, Maria?
MARIA
Yes. I used to work in the Academie
Francaise, but it didn't do me any good
at all. And I once worked in the
library in the Prado in Madrid, but
it didn't teach me nothing, I recall.
And the Library of Congress you'd have
thought would hold some key, but it
didn't, and neither did the Bodleian
Library.
In the British Museum I hoped to find
some clue. I worked there from nine till
six, read every volume through, but it
didn't teach me nothing about life's
mystery.
This scene goes on further, but for the purposes of this entry all that is needed is what is entered above.
I remember my college days as I was taking on a load of various Rhetoric, Philosophy, Psychology, and various Humanities classes. For the most part, my mind was elsewhere, but when I was engaged in these areas of study, I was arguably at my best.
I wanted to write, and in fact was already quite capable of doing so, but I wanted to write screenplays.
I had the good fortune of having a mentor who was a Humanities\Music instructor that I was working for. I had more fun, and learned far more in that office than I possibly ever could've if the opportunity hadn't been there.
In those roughly two and a half years, I served as a writer\director\editor for two films that were used as means of promoting our campus' online academic opportunities. We had no film courses to speak of (and I had no active training) but my passionate interest in filmmaking and production held me steady.
I still remember when the first film was previewed for the members of the board (i.e. those important people in suits who helped produce it). They loved it, and I was quickly given the opportunity to do a follow up.
All the time this was going on, I had a Philosophy of Film class, and then there were all the books I bought on screenwriting that I was picking up on what seemed to be a weekly basis.
And you know what I learned from them? The only thing I needed: formatting.
There was a time when I had, approximately, fifteen to twenty volumes that had the golden formula of writing screenplays. Even several magazines proclaimed to be touched by Midas, and I bought them all.
I eventually sold most of them back to second hand bookshops.
The few books that I do still have are "The Complete Book of Scriptwriting," by J. Michael Straczynski, "Hollywood 101" by Frederick Levy, and "The Aesthetics and Psychology of the Cinema" by Jean Mitry. The magazines I picked up consisted of "The Writer," "Scriptwriting Secrets," and "Scr(i)pt."
Among all these sources, plus the ten or so I resold, each offered a small tidbit here or there. And some often contradicted each other. From all these published materials, plus a few others, did I teach myself the standard Hollywood screenplay format.
And of course I had to teach myself, as I was a penniless college student who couldn't find a copy of Final Draft. I had to learn the hard way, which was arguably the best way. In fact, these days when people tell me I should buy a copy of Final Draft, I say "no thanks, I have my word processor. That's all I need."
And it's true. Microsoft Word and Word Perfect have served me very, very well this last decade.
I've also rejected most of the theories I've read on how to format a movie. Michael Hauge can burn in hell, for all I care. His six stage theory is the most predictable load of garbage I've ever read, and it's too limiting for me.
I once wrote a script according to Hauge's principles: it was terrible. I trashed it immediately and abandoned the whole concept and moved onto much more promising fare.
So, here's my screenwriting meaning of life: read all you want, look at all you can, but the point will come when you realize the true heart and soul of scripting comes from within. All the rest is just formatting details.
