By Rom Watson
c. November 9, 2013
Today I attended the Dramatists Guild’s Los Angeles event entitled New Ideas for the Modern Playwright. What I took away from the event was that some of the playwrights in the Guild are not interested in new ideas.
I refer to the 11:00 a.m. Final Draft Tutorial, which was led by a very knowledgeable representative from Final Draft named Zach Gutin. (Final Draft is a software program used by screenwriters, television writers and playwrights to write scripts.) Zach tried to give the presentation he was asked to give, one he has given numerous times in the past, but the audience wouldn’t let him. They were extremely resistant to hearing about the tools available in Final Draft, and bullied Eric into making the focus of his presentation extremely narrow. So much for new ideas.
This was obviously frustrating for Zach, but he reluctantly gave up his agenda and surrendered to the pleas of his audience. For this they were vocally grateful, and noticeably relieved that Zach let them dictate the direction of the software tutorial. They seemed desperate for answers and didn’t want to waste any of the hour allotted.
Personally, I would have like to have heard about Final Draft’s other features, because although I have never written a screenplay, I might want to someday. However, it seemed to me that the audience was frustrated with the software and wanted Zach to atone for the sins of Final Draft.
Watching this play out before me was like watching a master chef trying to tell his customers about the delicious soups and entrees and desserts on his menu, but the customers were only interested in a side salad. They did not want to hear about the soups and entrees and desserts, and in fact were a bit resentful that these other items were even offered. They wanted a side salad, and they wanted it their way, and to hell with everything else on the menu.
The presentation became a question and answer session, and I did learn some useful information. However, the behavior of this audience led me to the following conclusions.
- These people use Final Draft very begrudgingly.
- These are playwrights who have no interest in writing for film or television, to which the bulk of Final Draft is geared.
- They are so focused on getting their vision set down in writing that they have not given any consideration to how the formatting of their scripts will be perceived.
It is this third conclusion which I find most interesting, and which I am going to address.
The Dramatists Guild has published a Bill of Rights, which is an essential document that playwrights should read and internalize. It is on their website:
http://www.dramatistsguild.com/billofrights/
However, playwrights should also be aware of things to which they have no rights. Are you a playwright? If so:
- You have no right to determine the script format in which you work.
- You have no right to choose the font.
- You have no right to choose the font size.
- You have no right to choose the margins.
- You have no right to choose the layout of the page or the location of the elements on the page.
The three playwriting templates in Final Draft have been provided by The Dramatists Guild. These are the templates playwrights should use, and they should not be modified. Industry standards are there for a reason.
The reason is that all plays should look exactly the same.
Not on the stage. On stage they should all look different. But on the page they should look exactly the same.
Only the words should be different.
And yet . . .playwrights at the Guild event asked questions about how to circumvent the established formats. Zach patiently explained that the templates were provided to Final Draft by The Dramatists Guild and should not be changed. He prefaced his demonstration with “IF, for some unknown reason, you would ever need to change them. . .” However, I got the distinct sense that many of the playwrights were eager and determined to make those templates conform to their whims, industry standards be damned. Nobody said this, but this is my reading of the room.
I wanted to grab some of the people in that audience by the shoulders and shake them and tell them, “Consider your readers.”
However, since I want to be invited to more of these Guild events, I didn’t do that. So, I’m writing it here:
“Consider your readers. Don’t let your artistic impulses screw around with the format. That’s not going to get you the attention you need. The people that you would like to read your script: they want all plays to look the same. They want this because it makes it easier to read. A standardized format actually helps them look past the format and become involved in the story.”
A playwright’s creativity should be funneled into the creation of the play, not the format of the template.
Thanks for this, Rom. Took me years to learn the value of the standard accepted format.
Totally agree. Just as actors must follow the basic guidelines of the ‘template’ for roles that have preceded them, for those roles that are iconic, so too, the playwright…
Hi Rom – I think you’re really off the mark on this one.
FINAL DRAFT is primarily a software for screenwriters. That’s what it was meant to be. Period. The play template feature was created as nothing more than an afterthought, and was/is treated as a sort of stepchild to their way-cool screenwriting features. Okay. It’s still the best around and is pretty much accepted as “standard” by the theatres and organizations where we playwrights submit our work.
Having said that bit of flattery, FINAL DRAFT has a long way to go to catch up with our special needs, especially in the lack of flexibility of their page layout features. I can’t speak for others, but I personally paid nearly a lot of money several years ago for the privilege of using FINAL DRAFT, mainly for my theatrical scripts, and to a lesser extent, my screenplays. I’ve stuck by it, paying for those updates they promised would fix everything. That makes me a customer. A company that doesn’t respect the needs of their customers will lose them. If they like my money and my kind words of recommendation to others, they need to respect me.
Zach, for all of his good qualities, was miscast. He was NOT equipped to answer many of the questions we had that were playwright-specific. He was there to basically sell the next version. He was trained to sell the updated software in a way that would favor a screenwriters’ group, not playwrights. That’s not a bad thing. He’s a salesman. That’s what a salesman does. He was simply in the wrong room.
I don’t think it was his fault he didn’t have the answers that pertained to our needs, but at the same time, he didn’t handle himself very well. Zach became aggressive and arrogant, mumbling under his breath his comtempt for us and attempting to control the situation, instead of being flexible and humble about not knowing everything. Having had a great deal of experience in the world of public relations, I’ve seen people who’ve made the mistake Zach did, that of trying to FORCE their agenda down the throats of an audience, with little consideration of who their audience is.
As customers, we need and deserve to hear from someone who knows this software in and out and IS a playwright who can translate the screenwriting jargon into features that we can easily apply to our special needs.
The playwriting adaptation was always hard to work with and is getting better. Now that FINAL DRAFT is working with the Dramatists Guild, they are trying to catch up with our needs. I hope the new version will address many of our issues. Hopefully, next time it will be explained by someone who understands and appreciates their customers.
Thank you, Mary, for taking the time to craft such a well-written response. There’s nothing in it with which I disagree, and it’s very interesting for me to hear the perspective of someone else who was in that room. Cloaked in my naivete, I didn’t realize he was there to sell the next version. Though I have had Final Draft for over a year, so far I have only used it to write two 10-minute plays, so I defer to your knowledge and experience with the software. (And just to clarify: you are NOT one of the people whose shoulders I wanted to shake.) Thanks again. — Rom
One word: egomania
“I’m too smart to learn.” ” What do YOU know?”
Thus spaketh the tinsel town idiots once again!
I write play scripts intended to be projected; using MS Word one can embed songs, sound effects, videos in the digital script and double click icons representing them to play them from the script. A projected script following dialogue and action allows the hearing impaired to enjoy theatre. The audience seeing the playing of multi-media appeals to devotees of Bertolt Brecht. Marshal McLuhan demonstrated that the media is the message. A new medium dictates a new format. A rigid, look the same, industry standard prohibits a new format appropriate to the new medium. My play scripts will not be accepted. The theatre is dead.
Viewability theory suggests that a script page is like a digital window and on it there should be everything that the reader/actor/audience needs to see, nothing else and it should be viewable for the time needed. Implied also is ease of reading; the standard format is supposed to ensure this, but does it? Projection is on a roughly square screen. A one word line of dialogue requires the eye to switch from the centered character name to the extreme left; the white space of the remainder of the line is extraneous (the nothing of nothing else). Similarly, although starting position can signal the meaning of action/stage direction, the eye still required to do more work. An ergonomic script would have as much as possible centered and use italics, bold, parentheses, etc. to signal meaning of the line (line used here is not necessarily dialogue). Margins of 2 inches on either side for action and dialogue allow projection from 16 feet at a magnification of 210% of 12 point type, making projected dialogue and action very readable. But of course the new medium is of the Devil and the old is sacred. When will they ever change?
I demonstrated projection using a modified format December 10 in W. Hollywood and December 11 in Thousand Oaks using professional actors reading a full length play; there was no objection by the actors or the audience.
There are economic interests in forcing adherence to Final Draft.
I think Rom’s way of putting things for aspiring playwrights–the list of no rights–very efficiently puts us all into the mode of “just do it.” I tend to read dramatic works published in books, intended for that book-reading (not script-reading) audience. That’s how my mind organizes the characters and scenes. It looks right to me.
But I can see how using any non-standard format for submittal just pegs me as an amateur. Slush-pile, before the first line of dialogue.
So, I’ll write the way I write, but I’ll submit the way the format says.
No comment on the Final Draft discussion, out of my realm.
Hi, just wanted to tell you, I loved this blog post. It was practical.
Keep on posting!