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Chapter 7
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Screen Play
Writing K.Ramanathan CHAPTER
7 WHY
SO MUCH ABOUT THE VISUALS?
You may wonder
why are we talking so much about the visuals, when the main job of the screen
play writer should be to write the screen play, which should obviously be
connected with the dialogues the characters are supposed to talk, as part of the
story. The visuals will be of great
concern to the Director and Cameraman of the film. You are right
in so far as the visuals are of great concern to the Director and cameraman of
the film and that they are the people, who will decide and will have the final
say. Earlier the screen play writer
was more concerned with only the dialogues, as most films were known for the
spicy and punchy dialogues. But now with so much of exposure to films and TV and
having seen beautiful visuals, made
possible by the technical advancements in camera, lenses and photography
the viewers look for more impressive and arresting visuals.
The trend now is to have less of dialogue and more of visuals and action. So while writing a screen play the screen play writer also is
forced to think more in terms of the visuals than just the words.
Of course the words do have an impact, when presented properly.
At this point
it is necessary to point out that screen play writing is not writing just
dialogues, but actually re writing the story for the screen.
If you bear this in mind, you will realise that you have to have a fairly
good knowledge of the visuals that are possible to be used in a film, while
writing the screen play. Now this brings us to the next step of the film production,
which is editing of the film. POINTS TO
REMEMBER 1.
Not only are the director and a cameraman of the film are concerned with
the visuals, now even
the
common viewer expects the film to be a better visual
presentation of the story, than just relying on the
dialogues(the written words) . 2.
Screen play is not just playing with the words to impress the audience,
but is rewriting the story for
the big screen. Whatever that is being
said for the big screen, holds good
also for the small screen -
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