Alasdair Gray is Dead

[Polisman]

I think no-one is beyond redemption
Mercalia watches lots of films, what is that if not stories/fiction?

The earliest art known is cave drawings/paintings, of animals and nature, perhaps done for religious reasons
Must have been a lot of trouble to mix the paint

Storytelling has a very long history, started before writing I think (when did people start talking?)
Knowledge about hunting grounds, cures, childbirth etc was recorded and shared
Only recently has a written tradition developed

Most films and TV series are based on written form fiction, ie books. A lot of people imagine film and television just appears as if by magic from a hat.. It doesn't. It all starts with a written version, a script, which more often then not is either inspired by, or an adaptation of a book or a play. We're all consuming fiction, all of the time, written by some normally unknown, unsung genius, somewhere.

Were it not for these people we'd be watching back to back Homes under the Hammer and Strictly. Both of which, I'll wager, are both tightly scripted versions before transmission.

I have said before thats the role for written fiction - as a source for a decent tv/cinema show. Words are very limited and dont represent how we take in eg descriptive information of a scene.

My cousin did a TV producing degree and I remember chatting with him about Corrie. He said that the most important thing on television (given that TV screens are small) was the spoken dialogue. He said writers were always encouraged to imagine that the audience could be in the kitchen making the tea and still follow the drama exactly, without missing a beat. 70% of the information we get from television (in his studies) was from spoken dialogue, the picture and the lighting ect is only a small part of the television experience. Try it yourself, turn the sound down on TV drama and see if you can make head or tails of it. My bet is you'll get next to nothing, except maybe some context. Of course this was in the era when TV screens were 25" and low resolution, but watching TV now little has changed.

Cinema is of course different, being a projected media 50-100x bigger than a TV screen, but essentially it's a filmed play, which is a simply a written medium animated by actors. Without the talent of the writers essentially you don't have anything much. The writer, though unseen, is the brick that holds the house together, without whom like I said above you'd be watching crap reality TV and the six o'clock news (also script written).

[mercalia]

Most films and TV series are based on written form fiction, ie books. A lot of people imagine film and television just appears as if by magic from a hat.. It doesn't. It all starts with a written version, a script, which more often then not is either inspired by, or an adaptation of a book or a play. We're all consuming fiction, all of the time, written by some normally unknown, unsung genius, somewhere.

Were it not for these people we'd be watching back to back Homes under the Hammer and Strictly. Both of which, I'll wager, are both tightly scripted versions before transmission.

I have said before thats the role for written fiction - as a source for a decent tv/cinema show. Words are very limited and dont represent how we take in eg descriptive information of a scene.

My cousin did a TV producing degree and I remember chatting with him about Corrie. He said that the most important thing on television (given that TV screens are small) was the spoken dialogue. He said writers were always encouraged to imagine that the audience could be in the kitchen making the tea and still follow the drama exactly, without missing a beat. 70% of the information we get from television (in his studies) was from spoken dialogue, the picture and the lighting ect is only a small part of the television experience. Try it yourself, turn the sound down on TV drama and see if you can make head or tails of it. My bet is you'll get next to nothing, except maybe some context. Of course this was in the era when TV screens were 25" and low resolution, but watching TV now little has changed.

Cinema is of course different, being a projected media 50-100x bigger than a TV screen, but essentially it's a filmed play, which is a simply a written medium animated by actors. Without the talent of the writers essentially you don't have anything much. The writer, though unseen, is the brick that holds the house together, without whom like I said above you'd be watching crap reality TV and the six o'clock news (also script written).

Yes but in much written fiction it is the other way around, loads of words used to describe the situation and scene, the dusty furniture, the half eaten pizza, the rat droppings, the half closed drapes...... or the frown on the mans face, his creased brow, the womans cheeky look, her gentle carress on his thigh ...........words words words that wouldnt be used on the screen. Every thing is leveled down in written fiction. It would be as if the camera examined every detail of the scene in turn, zooming in and out to the next detail. all very tiresome & unnatural.

I suggest you also turn off the vision and just listen to the words, so much is lost unless like Steptoe and Son it was really a radio show meant for just listening ( or shakespears plays where dialogue is king). Imagine just listening to any film eg Saving private Ryan/The Longest day and you get next to nothing

[Mike Sales]

Guardian obituary.


https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/29/alasdair-gray-obituary

[Polisman]

Yes but in much written fiction it is the other way around, loads of words used to describe the situation and scene, the dusty furniture, the half eaten pizza, the rat droppings, the half closed drapes...... or the frown on the mans face, his creased brow, the womans cheeky look, her gentle carress on his thigh ...........words words words that wouldnt be used on the screen. Every thing is leveled down in written fiction. It would be as if the camera examined every detail of the scene in turn, zooming in and out to the next detail. all very tiresome & unnatural.

I suggest you also turn off the vision and just listen to the words, so much is lost unless like Steptoe and Son it was really a radio show meant for just listening ( or shakespears plays where dialogue is king). Imagine just listening to any film eg Saving private Ryan/The Longest day and you get next to nothing

I think you're kind of missing the point. Feature films are just animated and filmed scripts. Without which you would have no film, drama or plot. Writers write movies. I know this may seem incredible to you, but its true. The story arc, the drama and the dialogue come from the writer and no one else, not the Director, nor the actors, or the producer. Every word you hear in a movie, every sequence, every plot advancement has been agonised and pored over by its writer. Often for years of hard work beforehand. To give you an idea of the importance of the writer in a filmed project,the Director usually gets a straight 15% cut off the budget, the Prioducer 10% but the writer can normally claim 20-25%, which explains why JK Rowling is currently the richest woman in Britain.

Directors only direct the action and the actors. It's the DoP (Director of Photography) who decides how and what images are sequenced for the script. You don't seem to realise the absolute integral importance of a written script. It's like the detailed plans for a house, without which no one would e even imagine to commence work. I understand a lot of people are completely ignorant of how film and television dramas make it to the screen, but neither would be at all possible without the genesis, the power of an original script. All the arguing to the contrary is pretty useless. Take away the written script, and you just have a bunch of lighting /Camera/sound guys and some actors standing around with nothing to do.

[mercalia]

I think you're kind of missing the point. Feature films are just animated and filmed scripts. Without which you would have no film, drama or plot. Writers write movies. I know this may seem incredible to you, but its true. The story arc, the drama and the dialogue come from the writer and no one else, not the Director, nor the actors, or the producer. Every word you hear in a movie, every sequence, every plot advancement has been agonised and pored over by its writer. Often for years of hard work beforehand. To give you an idea of the importance of the writer in a filmed project,the Director usually gets a straight 15% cut off the budget, the Prioducer 10% but the writer can normally claim 20-25%, which explains why JK Rowling is currently the richest woman in Britain.

Directors only direct the action and the actors. It's the DoP (Director of Photography) who decides how and what images are sequenced for the script. You don't seem to realise the absolute integral importance of a written script. It's like the detailed plans for a house, without which no one would e even imagine to commence work. I understand a lot of people are completely ignorant of how film and television dramas make it to the screen, but neither would be at all possible without the genesis, the power of an original script. All the arguing to the contrary is pretty useless. Take away the written script, and you just have a bunch of lighting /Camera/sound guys and some actors standing around with nothing to do.

I haven't. I already said that. Books are a precursor to the real thing, just as the story boards are. You wouldn't spend much time on them as if they are standalone experiences.

[Polisman]

I haven't. I already said that. Books are a precursor to the real thing, just as the story boards are. You wouldn't spend much time on them as if they are standalone experiences.

I'm sorry not a word of that makes any sense? What do you mean by a story board? Films aren't made from story boards (unless they are big action thrillers with little dialogue to go on). They are constructed ground up from scripts. I don't think you know the first thing about film making to be honest. Writers construct the story, the plot arcs and the dialogue within the formal boundary of a script.

[mercalia]

I think you're kind of missing the point. Feature films are just animated and filmed scripts. Without which you would have no film, drama or plot. Writers write movies. I know this may seem incredible to you, but its true. The story arc, the drama and the dialogue come from the writer and no one else, not the Director, nor the actors, or the producer. Every word you hear in a movie, every sequence, every plot advancement has been agonised and pored over by its writer. Often for years of hard work beforehand. To give you an idea of the importance of the writer in a filmed project,the Director usually gets a straight 15% cut off the budget, the Prioducer 10% but the writer can normally claim 20-25%, which explains why JK Rowling is currently the richest woman in Britain.

Directors only direct the action and the actors. It's the DoP (Director of Photography) who decides how and what images are sequenced for the script. You don't seem to realise the absolute integral importance of a written script. It's like the detailed plans for a house, without which no one would e even imagine to commence work. I understand a lot of people are completely ignorant of how film and television dramas make it to the screen, but neither would be at all possible without the genesis, the power of an original script. All the arguing to the contrary is pretty useless. Take away the written script, and you just have a bunch of lighting /Camera/sound guys and some actors standing around with nothing to do.

I haven't. I already said that. Books are a precursor to the real thing, just as the story boards are. You wouldn't spend much time on them as if they are standalone experiences.

I've no idea what any of that means, but I'm sure you do.

https://twistedsifter.com/2012/12/storyboards-from-popular-films/

[Polisman]

I haven't. I already said that. Books are a precursor to the real thing, just as the story boards are. You wouldn't spend much time on them as if they are standalone experiences.

I'm sorry not a word of that makes any sense? What do you mean by a story board? Films aren't made from story boards (unless they are big action thrillers with little dialogue to go on). They are constructed ground up from scripts. I don't think you know the first thing about film making to be honest. Writers construct the story, the plot arcs and the dialogue within the formal mechanism of a script. Directors simply translate the script into the 'play' with actors. A movie is essentially only a filmed play.