I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… revision has never been my strong suit. In fact, I’ve never really revised. Sure, I’ve read through the first draft, maybe changing commas and a couple of lines, but never got into the deep, intensive work that is true revision - which is why I finally justified forking over some cash to take a screenplay revision course at Columbia University.
Granted, the course was pricey… pricier than I would have
liked. (Since I haven’t been billed yet and might possibly get a small
discount, I haven’t yet posted the final charge in my expenses section!) I
entered thinking there was nothing I could get from 6 weeks that would actually
justify the cost, and telling myself that I was doing it more to report back to
all of you on my experience… what surprised and delighted me, though, is that I
found the course to be absolutely worth it.
This super-intensive workshop required a total reworking of
an already finished screenplay. I speak
for everyone in the class when I say we started off feeling like:
And ended feeling like:
Everybody loved it: but the intense rewrites, workshops, and
massive amounts of required reading left everyone exhausted and dazed by the
last class (yesterday).
I brought Left, a
feature-length dramatic script I wrote in grad school, to work on. It won
Emerson’s Evvy Award back in 2005 and, in true go-getter fashion, I hadn’t
touched it since. I never imagined how much richer the script could become
since, having the award in hand, I already considered it to be pretty great. My
eyes have been opened.
The professor for this course, Jessie Keyt, was amazing (you
can check out her credentials here, just scroll down to her name), but what really put this workshop
over-the-top was the other students. Two of them already have financing for
their films, and they all have background with filmmaking and writing. Their
input and advice on everything from character to structure were invaluable.
The best technique I picked up from this class, though, is
to start your revisions with your outlines. Not all screenwriters start to
write from an outline (although they probably should) but whether you start
with one or not, make sure you have one after your first draft is done. Then,
after a re-read of the script, look to the outline to start adding in what you
felt the script lacked. Start your rewrite by rewriting your outline – then follow
it when you go back into your script. Trust me, this is a billion times easier,
both practically and psychologically, then starting a revision/rewrite in the
script itself.
After this incredibly exhausting adventure, my big plan is
to take two weeks off from Left. Then,
I’ll go in for another rewrite (having just done a rewrite throughout the six
week course), which I then am so lucky to be able to send to the professor and
the other students from this class to get their feedback once more. I’m
determined to whip it into way-better-than-average submission shape before the year is out.
As an aside, I was able to speak with the professor on the
pros and cons of going all-in on MFA programs, and she was actually the first
to say not to do it unless you have a fellowship to pay for it.
If instead you put up the full MFA program amount, you could
wind up feeling like this:
