Bengkel Intensif Penulisan Skrip TV Yang Boleh Dijual

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

BUNTU.... Tapi harus juga menulis?

Salam sejahtera,
Berjumpa lagi, berkongsi lagi...

Saya sedang memikirkan apa yang hendak saya tulis.... sebenarnya saya sedang 'stuck' dengan tugasan penulisan skrip yang sedang mendesak untuk saya siapkan sekarang ini. Tapi nafsu saya juga mendesak saya supaya mencoretkan sesuatu di blog ini.

Jadi saya fikir apa yang hendak saya tulis?
Tak dapat! Memang tak dapat, memang saya buntu. Lalu sedang bermain-main menerawang mencari apa yang hendak dicatatkan, saya teringat satu temubual yang pernah saya baca satu masa dulu, yang masih saya simpan... jadi saya ambil keputusan untuk menurunkannya di sini, mungkin ia ada sesuatu yang boleh saya kongsikan dengan saudara saudari semua. Silakanlah!

Interview with Godhead Scriptwriter
Most writers dream of bringing their work to life on the big screen. For novelist and short story writer, David Niall Wilson, that dream is finally a reality. Wilson, the author of several fantasy and horror novels, collaborated with filmmaker Rossana Jeran on the spiritual fantasy movie, Godhead. Both Wilson and Jeran took time out of their very busy schedules to discuss novel writing, screenwriting, and movie making with LoveToKnow Movies.




David Niall Wilson
LTK: Tell us about your background.

DW: I started out writing short fiction and poetry. Somewhere in the late 1990s I began writing novels, and since then I’ve been balancing my career between short and long fiction, trying to find the perfect niche. I have a dozen or so published novels now, a collection of short fiction due from Sarob Press in 2007, and I’ve been branching out into screenwriting for TV and for movies.

LTK: You've had much success with short stories and novels. How is that different from screenwriting?

DW: It’s a matter of how you envision your story. In short stories and novels you have to paint the background and bring the characters to life. In a script, you give the dialogue, and you sketch in the broader picture, but the director, actors and actresses fill in the details. It’s collaboration between the writer and all the other creative voices involved that brings the script to life on the screen. As a writer, sometimes it’s difficult to relinquish the control you have to in order to allow the words to be controlled and manipulated by others, but it’s essential.

I like prose and screenwriting. Sometimes I need the full control I have with a novel, or a short story. There are stories I don’t want to share, or to see evolving under the creative input of others. Sometimes, once I have that story in print, I feel differently. There are novels I’ve written that I’d like to see brought to the big screen, or even to television, and I find that once my own vision is solidly in place with the printing of the book, or story, it’s easier to let someone else in on the furthering of that story on the screen.

LTK: Where do you get your ideas for your stories?

DW: I wait until very late at night. When I’m sure that Stephen King is asleep, I dissolve into mist and slip in through his left ear... Seriously? I live my ideas. They come from all around me, what I read, what I see, and conversations with others. There is no single source for ideas, and it’s a good thing because if you have a single source of anything it can be cut off, or run dry.

LTK: Is it easy to sell a script once you've already been published?

DW: No. Godhead was an independent film, and part of the reason I “sold” myself as the screenwriter was that I was willing to work mostly on spec, and for not much money. I have a dozen novels sold and over 130 short stories and have been at this for nearly two decades, and it is only marginally more likely that I will sell a script. First you have to write a script - better to say you need to write a bunch of them. Then you need to get them into circulation by any means available to you and hope. There are a lot more scripts written than movies produced, and since the financial stakes on the part of the producers of any film are high, it’s a rough business to break into.

LTK: What advice would you offer aspiring screenwriters?

DW: Write. Don’t write one script and spend five years trying to get someone to make a movie out of it. Write a script, and then write another and another and another. Take advice when it seems good. Don’t revise and revise and revise for someone who hasn’t offered you either money, or the proof they know what they are doing in a long resume of film credits. Don’t lose hope. Don’t quit your day job until you have the first half a million in the bank. Did I mention write?



Soooo..... Ada tak sesuatu yang boleh kita jadikan ilmu di sini? Ada! Bagus dan alhamdulillah.

Takat inilah dulu...

Salam, Adiosa Amigos!

Jamil mutalib

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