On Fri, 18 May 2001, Alison Page wrote:
> >steve said -
> > >> the production process involves change, however small
> >
> >I asked a friend to put this question to Chris Boucher (not in connection
> >with the current stupid argument going on)
and here is the summary of the
> >answer
> >
> >'he puts in basic
> >action (e.g. character enters) but generally leaves the structuring of
> >shots
> >and
> >the detail of movement on set / filming to the director.
Yes, Boucher's description is I'd say pretty true. If you look at any real TV shooting scripts you will see that there may be some suggestions from the writer of
how a shot should be done or what model footage to use, but not many.
Let's say Boucher has just finished writing a first draft script. He would
then go through it with the director and the producer. The producer may say,
"in this scene instead of having a large room, can we have a medium sized
room? And instead of having Avon fighting with twenty guards, can we just
have five?" The director at one point may say, "No we can do the big room,
I'll use CSO. Or, instead of Avon fighting 5 guards we can just do it off
screen with sound effects." Then Boucher will go off and make
amendments and the director will go off and sort out the casting and book
the studios, and the producer will go off and ensure the right budgets are
allocated and so forth.
He might suggest
> >some
> >shots, e.g. the weird bit in 'Shadow' with Cally he specified in the
script
> >after learning in a conversation with the visual effects guy that it was
> >possible to do it), but a substantial amount would be down to the
director'
That having been said, the writer's role is not to be sneezed at either. The 'substantial amount' here means camera angles,
set lighting, talk with the special effects boys, sorting out the location
filming.
But in the end, if you sit down with a camera script and
follow an episode, I have to admit that story-wise you will notice very little difference
between what you are reading and what you are seeing on the screen. An actor
might transpose a line, or mess up a word (some productions more than others...). He might get shot with a shotgun not a clipgun or a hair curler. But in the end, the character's just as dead as he was in the script.
Leslie Clifford