FOR THE DURATION: 'Screenwriting in a digital era' - Kathryn Millard

This book confirms my suspicion that since the end of the 'Hollywood Golden Era', filmmaking has been more of an ad hoc affair, and not tied to a worked screenplay that is slavishly followed.  This was required by financial backers when film production (actually using film stock) was an industrial process involving hundreds of people.  Equipment was cumbersome, and setting up shots was a time consuming business.  The 'story' was everything.  Narrative was king.  Formulas were followed.

As equipment became more compact, and driven by filmmakers outside the Hollywood system, the screenplay became a more flexible entity.  A more reflexive style has been adopted that maximises opportunities to be creative. 

Now that everything has gone digital, screenwriting is no longer about one (man) sitting alone in a room at his typewriter.  'Pre-production' as a separate stage of filmmaking is becoming less distinct, as screenplays are allowed to develop alongside the actual production of a film.  This allows a greater degree of collaboration between participants in the process.  It also opens the door to more improvisation.

Screenplays can now take a multimedia form, including photographs and audio clips.  Errol Morris even sees the short film as a documentary screenplay.  The screenplay used to function as a proposal for a film, presented to potential backers.  Now, short films can play that role.

Kathryn Millard's 'manifesto for sustainable screenwriting':

1. Reject script development - Research. Produce. Release.
2. Think small - avoid overly-familiar ways of doing things.
3. Think big - embrace creative and intellectual ambition.
4. Write for place - chose a location and write for it.
5. Use what you have - grab low-hanging fruit.
6. Embrace constraints - imposed, incidental or accidental.
7. Collaborate - in every aspect of designing and executing the screen idea.
8. Embrace 'provocative competence' - leave your comfort zone.
9. Work on and off the 'grid' - don't just use social media.
10. Develop prototypes.  Work quick and dirty.  Your script can be a map, sketches, photo-texts, a wiki, a list, scenes that form part of a jigsaw, a graphic novel, a video trailer, a short film...
11. Recycle everything - ideas and resources.  Adopt 'adhocism', bricolage, and improvisation.
12. Cast your net wider.  Have more projects on the go at any one time.  An evolving network of enterprises maximises the chances of accidental discoveries.  Write and collaborate for other art forms.
13. A film should never be able to be summed up in a topic sentence.
14. Remember: life is infinitely richer than most of the stories told by the cinema.